How easy
it is, to shatter chinoiserie, like the Han

dynasty urn Ai Weiwei dropped in 1995.
If only recovering the silenced history

is as simple as smashing its container: book,
bowl, celadon spoon. Such objects cross

borders the way our bodies never could.
Instead, we’re left with history, its blonde

dust. That bowl is unbreakable. All its ghosts
still shudder through us like small breaths.
From the poem Occidentalism

This is one of the best poetry collections I've ever read. Intelligent and hard-hitting, Sally Wen Mao's poems cut close to the bone as she explores the Asian and, predominantly, female experience in the West, and the ripple effect that past has on the present as well as on the future. There are so many themes and topics that she is exploring here but she never allows the collection to become congested or for one subject to domineer and smother others--it's perfectly balanced and executed.

This is one of those books where I couldn't resist making notes...there were so many references in here to things I knew nothing about, such as the photographs of Ai Weiwei smashing of the Han Dynasty urn mentioned in the extract above, and what that signified. I loved learning more but it was also a painful process because it is not a pleasant history and, at times, I felt drenched in shame that I didn't know some of these things or they had simply never crossed my mind as a privileged white reader. The life of actress Anna May Wong I found deeply upsetting despite the poems in which she featured being amazing and beautifully written.

I'm kind of at a loss for words on this one. I think it's flawless and amazing and I could easily just gush about it here...but I won't.