Derek Chan



Tell Me Like You Mean It 6

Once, I was sitting in my therapist’s office, and she asked me the question ‘Why do you write poetry?’ It’s a very good question; one with many answers, half of which I couldn’t articulate here. I responded to her with something like, ‘It helps me to understand my internal environment.’

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In the Snows of My Twenty Fifth Year

Took a walk down 75th street & suddenly I wanted to buy pizza. For heat & something to push my tongue through. I was thinking of you while the sun was thinking of how the trees remain despite themselves. I …

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Bed of Winter

Po Po dreams / of glaucoma moon / a white meihua flowering / through alluvial night / she dreams each strand of light / a stemmed grief / stirring the parable of her face / dreams each eye unhinging / …

Posted in 107: LIMINAL | Tagged

Notes on the After

– After Ada Limón Not how it all wintered into scraps of half-inked pear blossoms, nor how the pondwater never thawed in time for the lotuses to proclaim their succulence to the desperate Spring, it was the inscrutable loss of …

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[Immigration Interview: Chinese Exclusion Act 1882]

[Who paid for your passage?] The blood that burned the brightest was always the one we followed. [Is there a clock in your father’s bedroom?] While he slept, silver wheat grew from the sweat of his clothes. The morning always …

Posted in 97 & 98: PROPAGANDA | Tagged

A Day for Rain

“The EPA estimates that roughly 20,000 farm-workers are poisoned every year by pesticides, but because of many immigrants’ fear of reporting incidents and inability to seek medical care, the number is likely much higher.” It’s a terrible day for rain. …

Posted in 93: PEACH | Tagged