A major achievement by Monica Youn, "one of the most consistently
innovative poets working today" (NPR).
"Where are you from . . . ? No--where are you from from?" It's a
question every Asian American gets asked as part of an incessant chorus
saying you'll never belong here, you're a perpetual foreigner, you'll
always be seen as an alien, an object, or a threat.
Monica Youn's From From brilliantly evokes the conflicted
consciousness of deracination. If you have no core of "authenticity," no
experience of your so-called homeland, how do you piece together an
Asian American identity out of Westerners' ideas about Asians? Your
sense of yourself is part stereotype, part aspiration, part guilt. In
this dazzling collection, one sequence deconstructs the sounds and
letters of the word "deracinations" to create a sonic landscape of
micro- and macroaggressions, assimilation, and self-doubt. A
kaleidoscopic personal essay explores the racial positioning of Asian
Americans and the epidemic of anti-Asian hate. Several poems titled
"Study of Two Figures" anatomize and dissect the Asian other: Midas the
striving, nouveau-riche father; Dr. Seuss and the imaginary daughter
Chrysanthemum-Pearl he invented while authoring his anti-Japanese
propaganda campaign; Pasiphaë, mother of the minotaur, and Sado, the
eighteenth-century Korean prince, both condemned to containers
allegorical and actual.
From From is an extraordinary collection by a poet whose daring and
inventive works are among the most vital in contemporary literature.
