Revenge of the Asian Woman
"Revenge of the Asian Woman" is really about “it,” whether that “it” is the It girl, the It trend, or that ineffable feeling you have in “LA, 3 AM, the wind in your hair, down to your / breasts, braless under a low-v dress, / stroking the driver who’s your lover.” This collection presents plenty of longing for those fleeting moments, regardless if those moments are the speaker’s first sexual awakening in “Ode to the First Boy Who Made Me Feel It”; the mother recounting her favorite childhood show about a family trying to reunite in “Triple Sonnet for Autoerotica”; or the nostalgia that’s presented with references to '80s teen films starring Andrew McCarthy, Liberace’s reign of Las Vegas, or “an appliance / that would deliver food from any part of the world — any part of the universe” from "The Jetsons."
And with all this sex and food and longing, "Revenge of the Asian Woman" is, above all, a fun romp. Let’s have a little Liberace-Las-Vegas-fun along the way with the glitz and glamour and kitsch of Japanese love hotels, B-movies starring Asian girls traveling to Mars, and total fantasy fulfillment as our dreams and nightmares come to life. The Asian woman conquers all, having her cake and eating it too — “Oh, cut that cake again.”
Bio
Dorothy Chan earned a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Arizona State University in 2015.
Praise for this book
Dorothy Chan's mind is a banquet, a smorgasbord, a feast of oysters, caviar, cocktails, sexual investigation and late-night bacchanals. Like Odysseus she is at the prow of her poetic ship of odes and sonnets, and with a fearless voice navigates through the sirens of 21st-century peril. This is an all-you-can-eat buffet of wild abandon, a curious over-caffeinated woman plowing into the night of pop culture delirium. Chan says, 'Asian girls have that thing going on,' and you may think you know what she means, but believe me, you have no idea.
Barbara Hamby
Here to snatch you into a frenzied, messy, riotous joy, the poems in Dorothy Chan’s collection flash and spin and buzz, a cyclone of imagery and formal play. ... 'Revenge of the Asian Woman' translates itself into a dizzyingly lush and empowered excess. Revenge is 'lavender religieuse and Ispahans,' 'whipped plum ice cream,' 'what potato chips taste like on Saturn.' Revenge is 'I don’t have time to be someone else’s biographer.' Revenge is beautiful."
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon
