Full Description
Stand-up comedy, a celebrity non-apology, observations of racism, and the slipperiness of nostalgia underpin Replica. In poignant, witty poems, Lisa Low navigates the tensions of solidarity and hostility in white spaces as she sets out to write differently about race.
"The problem of being with a white man is also a problem of writing," Low says in a prose poem that turns writing about identity on its head. She peers in from outside the poem, as if through an open ceiling. The poem itself becomes a site of investigation—a counterpoint to constricting narratives about Asian American identity—reimagined as a dollhouse, a stage with props, an image the speaker wears like a bodysuit. Replica asks what it means to represent yourself and your experiences in a world where you are indistinguishable from others.
Contents
Replica
1
Forty Years
At Target in Bloomington
Ode to Maxi Pads
The Other Asian Girl
Cut
Dollhouse
If Memory Is a House
At My Uncle's Deathbed
Real Life
Appearances
Extraction
Recurring Dreams of Marrying My Childhood Crushes from the Chinese Bible Church of Maryland
My First Beet-Colored Pee
2
Mail-Order Groom
People Who Look Like You
3
Aubade
White Spaces
Crown for the Girl Inside
4
Ars Poetica
Party Anxiety
Feedback Loop
Ars Poetica
Nine Apologies
Palinode
Ode to Armpit Hair
Ars Poetica
Acknowledgments
Notes
