哀 / Sad
From West: A Translation (Copper Canyon Press, 2023) by Paisley Rekdal. Copyright © 2023 by Paisley Rekdal. Used with the permission of the publisher.
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Joan of England in Bordeaux, 1348
Daughter of Edward III, Joan of England, traveled during the Black Death to meet her fiancée, Peter of Castille.
What name will he call her when they meet
in her embroidered skirts of silk and velvet?
It’s all that she can bear to wonder,
trapped on board this docked ship
2024
有識 / Have Knowledge
Immigration questions for Chinese claiming to be former
US residents, or for Chinese entering the country during the
Chinese Exclusion Act
Have you ridden in a streetcar?
Can you describe the taste of bread?
Where are the joss houses located in the city?
Do Jackson Street and Dupont
run in a circle or a line, what is the fruit
your mother ate before she bore you,
how many letters a year
do you receive from your father?
Of which material is his ancestral hall now built?
2023
傳 / Pass
Brigham Young hoped passing trains
would enliven trade, while Congress
hoped trade would pass polygamy
from existence. Stanford didn’t think the Chinese
could pass muster, then used them to pass up
the Irish, after which he wanted Chinese out,
passed over by law to keep them from passing
for white. The work passed
to Japanese, who were put in camps, then on
to Mexicans, Navajo, Italians, Poles, Greeks, Swedes,
each man passed into and out of
some approximation of American. “We cannot fail
2023