Poems

Investing in a Poet

by Alain Bosquet

Disappointed with reality? Rent a poet:
he is cheaper than a driver or a typist.
If he likes, he might work
for nothing.  Don’t hesitate to tell him

your age, your name, your place of birth
and other such data.  Within an hour or so,
he will have you reinvented.  Another life,
new feelings, an unknown self

that stays with you or asks for a divorce,
a virgin soul at last: what can be more refreshing
or rightful?  Of course, you shouldn’t

make ill use of him: an overdose
of poetry can become dangerous.  You should choose
a poet who works under oath.

—from No Matter No Fact, translated by Samuel Beckett.

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How One Family Created Chinese America
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The Lucky Ones, by Mae Ngai The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America by Mae Ngai Hyphenated cultures seem to be a natural part of California’s landscape today, but it wasn’t always so. The Lucky Ones by Mae Ngai offers a fresh look at California history by reconstructing the lives of immigrant and second generation pioneers who lived between cultures when it was not such a common phenomenon. Ngai’s narrative brings Chinese Americans into a richer tradition of historical storytelling by humanizing an ambivalent, middle-class immigrant family, situating their lives within the more well-known histories of Chinese laborers and those who suffered from the 1882 Exclusion Act.

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