Part of the ‘Queer’ Asia 2020: Rethinking Radical Now Blog Series
Video Credit: Bramley Sessions
Video link
Bio: Jinhao is a lover of poetry, language; curious of the quiet and unheard; believes that poems can carry the non-weight of hearts; is the inaugural champion of Asia House Poetry slam 2018. Their poems often explore the mundane and the domestic existence of queer bodies. Their poems have appeared in Poetry Review, Gutter Magazine, Spilled Milk Magazine, and Slam! (anthology of spoken words poetry edited by Nikita Gill).
Transcript:
China
White man
Breaks bread
& dips it
In you
A yolk
Yellow
For breakfast
He drinks tea
Out of
Your bones
Fine china
He touches
Your nerves
Like rice
Porridge
Overcooked
Each grain
Broken
English
Letters from
Your mother
In characters
Drowning
Bodies the sea
Black
Ink
Each stroke
Fleeting
Heartbeat
You daren’t
Break
The news
You have
Failed
Language
Tests
The toughest
Grammar
Questions
Your accent
Wrong answers
To the white man’s knee
Every man
You meet
A checking point
Where are you from?
He asks
Answer him
Made in China
A trade mark
Birthed on a
Product
Your body
The cargo ship
delivers
Wreckage
Of your memory
Sunk
Into the
Horizon