#cathy linh che

[soracities]

Cathy Linh Che, interviewd in "The Rumpus Mini Interview Project #144" [ID'd]

#q #lit #quotes #typography #interviees #id included #cathy linh che #the rumpus #echoes of the other #m #x

[pikslasrce]

[transcript: 1. "I feel it's my anger that has helped keep me alive,"

2. "I've polished this anger and now its a knife."

3. "If only I could sustain my anger

Feel it grow stronger and stronger

It sharpens to a point and sheds my skin

Shakes off the weight of my sins

And takes me to heaven"

4. "TELL ME WHERE TO PUT MY ANGER

TELL ME WHERE TO PUT MY ANGER

TELL ME WHERE TO PUT MY ANGER"

5. "Rage, maybe rage would lift me up, make me stand, make me walk —"

6. "Isn't all that rage so ugly?

And isn't it mine, still? Good God, isn't it mine?"/end transcript]

Audre Lorde, Sister Love: The Letters of Audre Lorde & Pat Parker // Cathy Linh Che, Go Forget Your Father // The Ballad of the Costa Concordia, Car Seat Headrest // @/rbhvleo (x) // Marlon James, Black Leopard, Red Wolf // Ashe Vernon, "Buried", Not a Girl

#web weaving #parallels #on anger #on rage #audre lorde #car seat headrest #cathy linh che #marlon james #ashe vernon #this has been sitting in my gallery for ages and i came to terms that i wont be expanding it rn so yeah skdjdjdg #mine #also this is my 1st time including a transcript so tell me if smth needs to be fixed #repetition tw #<- for 4. #csh

[ladysansalannister]

persephone had it right

“a burning hill,” mitski/“the beatrice letters,” lemony snicket/“cigarettes & saints,” the wonder years/“the beatrice letters,” lemony snicket/“samson,” regina spektor/“the beatrice letters,” lemony snicket/“letters to doc,” cathy linh che

#mitski #lemony snicket #a series of unfortunate events #asoue #the wonder years #regina spektor #cathy linh che #the beatrice letters #web weaving #words #books #musicians #grief #heartbreak #persephone was right #if you must go might as well take all of spring with you #made by me

[lillyli-74]

I have polished this anger and now it’s a knife.

~Cathy Linh Che

#cathy linh che

[thedearidiot]

Morning yawns and today, my father has deleted a daughter, today, he’s blessed with two sons who take after his fire and quicksilver. Today he may be haunted by the grip of a friend who died in his arms, but not the scent of a baby girl he held 37 years ago. Women, he says, and spits out a phlegm- colored ghost. There is plasm, he says, and shrugs–– and then, there is ectoplasm. What is a father who has two sons? Happy

- Cathy Linh Che, Becoming Ghost.

#cathy linh che #poetry #father. don't you see i'm burning

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of december

torrin a. greathouse ekphrasis on nude selfie as portrait of saint sebastian

snehal vadher hello flowers and cigarettes

robert pinsky death and the powers: a robot pageant

wendy barker taking a language

cindy juyoung ok terms and conditions

carl phillips this far in

christian wiman hard night: “the ice storm”

cathy linh che split: “the german word for dream is traume”

linda hogan when the body

david trinidad the late show: “a regret”

omotara james my mother’s nerves are shot--

marie howe the good thief: “death, the last visit”

kaveh akbar portrait of the alcoholic floating in space with severed umbilicus

donald britton in the empire of the air: “italy”

snehal vadher figures in a windswept language

jane wong after preparing the alter, the ghosts feast feverishly

ofelia zepeda ocean power: “deer dance exhibition”

lucille clifton good woman: poems and a memoir, 1969-1980: “the lost baby poem”

emily pérez dworzec

ouyang jianghe mother, kitchen (tr. austin woerner)

cathy linh che i walked through the trees, mourning

sam willets tourist

ed bok lee whorled: “if in america”

dan gerber marriage

matthew rohrer poem written with issa [“a friend emails”]

richard siken crush: “litany in which certain things are crossed out”

april bernard anger

claudia rankine citizen: “you are in the dark, in the car...”

barbara hamby letter to a lost friend

joy harjo everybody has a heartache: a blues

cathy linh che go forget your father

kofi

#tbr list #poem #poems #poetry #poetry list #cathy linh che #joy harjo #barbara hamby #claudia rankine #april bernard #richard siken #matthew rohrer #dan gerber #ed bok lee #sam willets #ouyang jianghe #emily perez #emily pérez #lucille clifton #ofelia zepeda #jane wong #snehal vadher #donald britton #kaveh akbar #marie howe #omotara james #david trinidad #linda hogan #christian wiman #carl phillips

[mortisha]

I’ve polished this anger and now it’s a knife. I’m hardened as a hunter ornamenting his cave with the bones of the dead. I’m so sick of history dragging behind me.

Cathy Linh Che, Go Forget Your Father.

#words #lit #poetry #cathy linh che

[thoughtportal]

Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Making Of

By Cathy Linh Che

Cue soundtrack.

The undead include:

              my grandmother, my older sister,

              my uncle, who was a priest,

              four cousins, still children.

They eat the pomelos we set at the altar,

              all in a circle,

              peeling the membranes,

              dropping the segments into each other’s mouths.

I am the director.

The zombies don’t look like zombies.

Just my grandmother,

              unable to speak,

              the flies reanimating

              her body’s giving up.

Just my older sister, all grown now.

              She was a little VC sacrificed

              to show the depravity of war.

              She died and died and died again.

I yell, Cut!, and they ascend into heaven.

Makeup!  I call across the set.

I ask the artists to bruise the undead.

I provide a mood board, artist sketches

composed by my brother,

happy to paint again. It’s a family

production. My father fiddles

with the Super 8. He shakes his head

at the last reel: Too dark.

My mother in costume design,

her head down at the sewing machine,

a measuring tape hangs from the curtain.

She is burning incense,

pouring holy water into the iron.

She stitches the tatters and hand-hems the silk.

She is careful, but we are running low on time.

The light is starting to dim.

I call down my uncle, my cousins,

their faces at the side of the road—

the red terror, a tableau.

I tell them,

Here is the script. Act natural.

This is just like the story

of your lives.

View this poem online

#poem #poetry #the poetry foundation #apocalypse #zombies #war #Cathy Linh Che

[theoffingmag]

He says: I want it to smell  like the real thing.

The real thing is a landscape

of work and death–– the names of our ancestors

slack in our mouths, just the art of loving

your family line enough to reproduce it.

From “Becoming Ghost” by Cathy Linh Che

#the offing #cathy linh che #poetry #poem #excerpt #quote

[abellinthecupboard]

Pomegranate

I open my chest and birds flock out. In my mother’s garden, the roses flare toward the sun, but I am an arrow pointing back. I am Persephone, a virgin abducted. In the Underworld, I starve a season while the world wilts into the ghost of a summer backyard. My hunger open and raw. I lay next to a man who did not love me— my body a performance, his body a single eye— a director watching an actress commanding her to scintillate. I was the clumsy acrobat. When he came, I split open like a pomegranate and ate six of my own ruddy seeds. I was the whipping boy. Thorny, barbed wire wound around a muscular heart.

— Cathy Linh Che

#Pomegranate #Cathy Linh Che #poetry #poet #poem

[alinaandalion]

What I seek is redemption.  An arrow that joins a split heart.

“Brooklyn Interior” from Split by Cathy Linh Che

#quotes #poetry #cathy linh che

[soracities]

Cathy Linh Che, interviewed by Raj Chakrapani in "The Rumpus Mini Interview Project #144" [ID'd]

#q #lit #quotes #typography #interviews #cathy linh che #rumpus #m #x

[imaginemirage]

"I've polished this anger and now it's a knife."

Cathy Linh Che

#cathy linh che #quote #poetry #poem #quotes #poet #anger #knife

[ukdamo]

Split

Cathy Linh Che

I see my mother, at thirteen,

in a village so small

it’s never given a name.

Monsoon season drying up—

steam lifting in full-bodied waves.

She chops bắp chuối for the hogs.

Her hair dips to the small of her back

as if smeared in black

and polished to a shine.

She wears a deep side-part

that splits her hair

into two uneven planes.

They come to watch her:

Americans, Marines, just boys,

eighteen or nineteen.

With scissor-fingers,

they snip the air,

point at their helmets

and then at her hair.

All they want is a small lock—

something for a bit of good luck.

Days later, my mother

is sent to the city

for safekeeping.

She will return home once,

only to be given away

to my father.

In the pictures,

the cake is sweet

and round.

My mother’s hair

which spans the length

of her áo dài

is long, washed, and uncut.

#poetry #war #occupation #cathy linh che #talisman #soldiers #safety

[lillyli-74]

I’ve polished this anger and now it’s a knife

~Cathy Linh Che

#cathy linh che

[julian-winter]

Cathy Linh Che - My Mother upon Hearing News of Her Mother's Death

#poetry #cathy linh che #poems