Another layer of complexity!
Family Protests White Poet’s Use of Chinese Pen Name
"Controversy erupted in the poetry world earlier this week when it was discovered that a poem included in the annual “Best American Poetry” anthology was written by a white poet, Michael Derrick Hudson, who had submitted it to a journal under the Chinese pseudonym Yi-Fen Chou.
Now it turns out that pseudonym may have come from a real person.
The family of a woman named Yi-Fen Chou, who attended the same high school in Fort Wayne, Ind., as Mr. Hudson, has stepped forward, demanding that he immediately stop using it.
“I’m just aghast,” Ellen Y. Chou, the sister of Yi-Fen Chou, said in an interview. Mr. Hudson’s use of the name, she added, showed a “lack of honesty” and “careless disregard for Chinese people and for Asians.”
http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/artsbeat/2015/09/10/family-protests-white-poets-use-of-chinese-pen-name/?_r=0&referrer
Millicent
Kale Soup for the Soul
http://www.MillicentBorgesAccardi.com
@TopangaHippie on Twitter
Água mole em pedra dura tanto dá até que fura
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick McManus <[log in to unmask]>
To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thu, Sep 10, 2015 2:55 am
Subject: Re: What's in a poet's name?
very interesting I thought that the poems were supposed to be judged
blind?
next we will have women publishing using male nom
deplumes!!!!!!
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Wootton
Sent:
Thursday, September 10, 2015 8:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re:
What's in a poet's name?
Well, Millicent, Hal,
I'd have to say I think
this isssue is worth discussing. I have read and
respect much of Sherman's
prose and poetry and I can understand his take
here but agree that it it is
not a good look. Max, you may well add
something about the Ern Malley affair
in Australia, the name being a
fictitious construct by two established writers
who sought to expose
publication / quality issues as I understand it. The
difference being that
some of the 'Malley' poems may well stand up. This
Hudson's efforts don't
look to me to be particularly striking and he does seem
willing to exploit
editorial policy or judgment issues and damn the rest of
the world. Another
instance here in Australia was the gong being delivered to
a novel, The Hand
that Signed the Paper, allegedly written by a Ukranian
survivor, Helen
Demidenko which spoke of massacres which apparently never
occurred. The
award was later stripped from the writer when she was outed as
an English
writer Helen Darville.
Bill
On 10/09/2015, at 9:23 AM,
Millicent Borges Accardi wrote:
> Greetings,
>
>
> I have many thoughts on
this matter. Let's see, first of all, Sherman
> Alexi's essay was kind,
thoughtful and he laid open his entire process for
> how he selected poems,
and was completely transparent. However, in the
> same situation I would not
have included the poem.
>
>
> Michael Derrick Hudson donned a "yellow face,"
by submitting work under a
> false name (Yi-Fen Chou), and it was NOT a
persona poem or an attempt to
> adopt heteronyms like Fernando Pessoa (where
the poet creates identities
> and writing styles). It was a clear case of
fraud, an author attempting to
> get his work published. It was not part of a
larger installation or
> visionary project about identity and race. It was
non-deliberate and
> thoughtless. I found Hudson's bio in BAP and
"explanation" to be
> especially disconcerting and offensive.
>
>
> And
even though editors say they read work "color blind," author name DOES
> make
a difference as to how a poem is interpreted.
>
>
> Like David Mura said, "On
the White Guy submitting poetry as "Yi-Fen Chou"
> and being chosen for the
Best American Poetry: Of course this use of
> yellow face is ridiculous and
offensive as is the poet's reasons for doing
> so. . . .There's so many things
wrong with this implication but to get
> into it, I'd have to write an entire
dissection of the ways race plays out
> in the literary world. So I'll just
stick to something more literary:
> . . .Sherman could have made the case that
the poem reads differently if
> you know it's been written by a white male,
rather than an Asian or an
> Asian American. But that would require an
discussion of how certain poems
> are actually read in part with a knowledge
and a context provided by who
> the author is. It's not, as some maintain,
that the words should be judged
> only as they appear on the page and nothing
else matters. As with standup
> comics, the person delivering the words is
part of the way we hear and
> interpret the words. When Patricia Smith writes
a poem in the voice of a
> racist skinhead, we read that poem knowing the poet
who wrote it is a
> black woman and that is part of the accomplishment of the
poem--how she is
> able to enter the mind and feelings of someone who hates
who she is. . .
> .With the poem in question in the BAP anthology, there's a
tone of
> complaint which to my mind reads differently if you know the author
is a
> white male rather than an Asian or Asian American. If I read it as
being
> written by an Asian or Asian American, that tone of complaint takes on
a
> level of irony which is not there if I know the poem was written by a
>
white male: "My life's spent/ running an inept tour for my own."
>
>
>
Garrett Hongo's words, "most of the response from non-Asians has been to
>
"appreciate" Sherman's candid and forthright statement in his long
> apologia
on the matter. Or, in the extreme, to express support of "Yi-Fen
> Chou."
Meanwhile, most Asians are angry in the extreme, even to the point
> of
condemning Pound for "The River-Merchant's Wife" as an historical act
> of
"yellowface." Others are above the fray and see it as po-biz silliness.
> Lots
of non-hearing going on about this. At bottom, to me, is the issue of
>
Orientalism and the historical Western proprietorship of racial masquerade
>
regarding colonized and oppressed peoples. "Freedom" here is the freedom
> to
colonize EVERYTHING, including identity, and to treat it as commodity,
> which
can be both circulated and jettisoned as deemed necessary by the
> functioning
of POWER.
>
>
> Millicent
>
>
>
> Kale Soup for the Soul
>
>
>
http://www.MillicentBorgesAccardi.com
>
> @TopangaHippie on Twitter
>
>
Água mole em pedra dura tanto dá até que fura
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
-----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>
To: POETRYETC <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wed, Sep 9, 2015 3:51 pm
>
Subject: What's in a poet's name?
>
>
> What's in a poet's name?
>
> Your
views poetryetcers?
>
>
>
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2015/09/07/yi_fen_chou_is_michael_derrick_hudson_the_best_american_poetry_from_2015.html
>
>
Bill
>
>
>
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