Three renowned poets, including a Quinnipiac University alumni, read their work to a group of over 60 Quinnipiac students, faculty and staff members as a way to share sentiments about racism, culture and feeling like a stranger in one’s home country.
The Asian Student Alliance and The South Asian Society at Quinnipiac collaborated with English professor, Jason Koo, to host the Zoom-based poetry reading on April 8, at 8 p.m. The event occurred with the backdrop of an increase in Asian hate crimes nationwide, serving as a reckoning for many white people about the severity of racism in America and the importance of solidarity.
“For 355 consecutive mornings during this pandemic, I have meditated to try and give myself some sort of balance, but every day I still fill with rage at some point over some lazy lack of attention or some insidious lack of attention that affects millions of lives, or maybe just one,” Koo said. “Perhaps it is corny to say poetry has given me hope, has kept me going through all this. But I don’t think so.”
As the poets, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Leila Chatti and Kyle Liang (Quinnipiac class of 2017) read their work, it became clear that poetry was a centering force for them as they faced racism, isolation and illness in the past year and throughout their entire lives.
Liang, author of “How to Build a House,” shared a poem that he wrote in March 2020 when the pandemic was just starting and anti-Asian hate crimes were increasing.
“I wrote it at a time where I thought this is really awful what is happening to the Asian-American, Pacific Islander communities and the hate crimes committed and I think it is particularly hard for me to read because I thought a year from then we would be in a much better place and we are actually in a much worse place,” Liang said.
While Liang, son of Taiwanese and Malaysian immigrants, was hesitant to speak on behalf of all Asian people, he said that he feels a “tremendous amount of sadness” about the racism against Asian people. An organization called “Stop AAPI Hate” said it received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans nationwide last year starting in March 2020.
“Let go of my throat so I can cough/ Free your fear from my trachea/ My diaphragm is exploding,” Liang read from his poem “A Lesson on Immunology.” “I step on to the subway, white flags tight to my skin/ I whisper to my nose, begging, please don’t run.”
The poem continues to tell the story of when Liang got a phone call from his mother saying that “the Chinese aunties” were sharing videos of Asians in white masks being attacked by white people.
“She cries, ‘There is no use in wearing a white mask in public. We are under attack either way,’” Liang reads. “Our bodies at war with the world and a virus.”
Tonight, I’ll rest my head on scallion pancakes / And try to dream of dragons dancing over a fence.
Kyle Lang, “How To Build A House”
The second poet, Leila Chatti, a Tunisian-American, is the author of “Deluge,” which tells the story of an illness she had in her early 20s that led to extreme bleeding. Her book focuses on menstruation, femininity and the mother figure.
“Truth be told I like Mary a little better when I imagine her like this, crouched and cursing, a boy God pushing on her cervix,” Chatti read from her poem, “Confession.” “I like remembering she had a cervix, her body — ordinary and so like mine.”
She also shared a poem, “Tea,” inspired by the pandemic and the isolation and loneliness that she felt and still feels.
“Five times a day I make tea,” Chatti reads. “I do this because I like the warmth in my hands, like the feeling of self-directed kindness. I am not used to it. Warmth and kindness, both, so I create my own when I can.”
The final poet to read was Reginald Dwayne Betts, a poet, lawyer and former felon. His poetry explored the effects of incarceration on Black people.
“My homeboy killed his mom, served a bunch of time in prison, came home and he’s been homeless ever since,” Betts said. “It made me think about how society reproduces violence. You go to university and you expect to learn something. You go to prison and it is just acceptable that prison reproduces people that have no way come to grips with the shit that led them into prison and they come home with no resources.”
Betts said his goal is to build “kinship and community” with other people to help break the cycle of violence. He recalled a time he went to a literary event hosted by an Asian-American organization wearing an “offensive” Pusha T hoodie. He said this was an important moment for him to realize the ways in which different groups should support one another to break the cycle of racism.
“I felt really ashamed that I had the hoodie on,” Betts said. “Then I felt like a sucker for being ashamed so when I had the reading I said ‘I feel ashamed. I won’t wear it again. Maybe I will spray paint over the offensive shit,’” Betts said.
By the end of the reading, the DJ at the event was playing Pusha T in a funny instance of community. This moment was a way for Betts to acknowledge his failings.
“It is easy to just condemn people who do horrific things,” Betts said. “It is much harder to both condemn the awful thing that happened and build community on the back end.”