Praxis

Wendy Xu

I had put down in writing my fear of the war

I too pined for pastoral description

The blue of the water was the blue of the world

Newness does not, for me, equal satisfaction

A finite number of concentric rings I push out into space

A tedious fabric moving through time without malice

An act of oration, rebellion, inventory, fantasy

The sound of the earth closing its one good eye over me

Imagine: you reach out towards the margin’s white hand

You do what your poems want and are clean

When you lay down your thorns you will be done

You do not take up arms against anyone

Wendy Xu is the author of three books of poetry: The Past (Wesleyan University Press, 2021); Phrasis (Fence Books, 2017), which was named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017 by The New York Times Book Review; and You Are Not Dead (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013).

About Wendy Xu

Occasion

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

Themes

Audio

Identity

Politics

About this Poem

“This poem considers the fantasy (the myth) of writing as a politically and ethically neutral force—how seductive to imagine that the act of writing is less sticky than acts in the world. Ultimately, how flawed.”
—Wendy Xu

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Notes on Sentence Crossing

Let it be an unruly one—an unplucked ass hair—not collagen but spite—not to live to
annihilate other living things—just to receive—I live to sieve—she says—who says—I
say now to her—I say now I admire the melodrama of this particular moment of
your suffering recorded—it was so cold that day, mom—and how did you do it—

Wendy Xu

2023

Interim Poetics

I walked there guilty by tongue but not by mind
The water was breaking on a soft green rock
The rock was breaking underfoot despite a lack of intention
My works contained no genius, only an agitated bouquet of ideas
White ones, sand ones, some almost blue
An image I returned to: deep green tendrils, coarse salt

Wendy Xu

2018

Writing Home

An absence declares
its blunt self. I can’t believe the extent
of my luck, heard twice, like violets
in a bath of lukewarm water.
The city was my father’s though none
of its sweetness appears here living
before you. A strong instrument.
A blowing on the hands

Wendy Xu

2018

Poems

Praxis

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Notes on Sentence Crossing

Interim Poetics

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Praxis

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