Monsters I Have Been

Kenji C. Liu

• Publisher: Alice James Books
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781948579544
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Using an invented poetry method called frankenpo (frankenstein poetry), Liu takes existing texts and remixes them, creating multi-faceted poems that investigate the relationship between toxic masculinity and forms of violence plaguing our modern society. It also explores the male-male erotic and marginalized masculinities that are urgently needed as a counterweight to today's dominant hypermasculinity.

ULTRAMAN’S LAMENT FOR SHIN HAYATA, YEAR 1 / 1年

1.  In this memory you’re a cold rattle of pills. A pressed gathering of molecules, rejected by gravity.

2.  In Nagasaki, the holes were the deepest in the world. They weren’t that deep. It’s not what you wanted, was it.

3.  You’re an aluminum horse slipping between the snowflakes, your ragged split of hair whistling waist-long. Now a view of the asylum’s burned caramel.

4.  If you’re looking, you should fall into a sinkhole in the tundra. Giant flocks of birds will pass over. Deep, not a measurement, just a statement of fact.

5.  What did it take to carve your lovely nose? Slip through the crabgrass kingdom with that glass ballerina spine. A reputable spectre always returns to hunger.

6.  That winter, the first time a diagnosis ever touched you. No testosterone in the tank. How many times has a fist of hail found your exact location?

7.  You haven’t been as sad as the gazing moon. But you’ve lived in a suburb. What’s the only medicine that’s ever worked for you?

8.  Sketch your name in your palm. Count the strokes. How many now? The blue orb of your Ultraman, draining like a god ventricle. The unusual ruin of your

9.  A crater in the shape of you and nothing to fill it with. Isn’t that enough? Crash down to me, become ice.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT YOU 1

after Kenneth Tam’s “Breakfast in Bed”

Bro, you’re lanky and tall. Your eyes really stand out.

Got a lot of hair growing from your chest, spilling.

I’m jealous of your beard, it’s nice and full. Jealous.

You look like you take care of yourself. When we dance,

I love the way our bells swing. Got a good physique,

you’re a good-looking guy. We coordinate well.

You’ve got good ideas, like swinging our hips right

and then left. You take leadership, appreciate that.

I chase you with blue paint and you spring away.

I want to make my mark on you, like all the other guys.

Love your skin tone, darker than mine. Let me glue

this cheerio to your chest. I’ll avoid the hair. Though dusky,

your skin’s bright under fluorescents. This blindfold fits

perfectly under your tinfoil hat. Find me, bro.

I’m rustling in the far corner. I’m circling, watching, and

smiling. I’m teasing your neck. Let’s hold hands and jingle.

TEACHMG MEN TO BE EMOTLONALLY HONEST

frankenpo

My full teeth desire was

to avoid being¹

an extracurricular

victim²

of minor men

in the ugly experiment³

The tough-guy lines

suicide hookups⁴

pounding displays of

national gender⁵

These gesture projects

with their pall

facial crises⁶

The stirring said: Be joy

Mutate the hypermasculine

kit⁷

Lower the

outpouring bicep and

devastating bark⁸

In that last behavior

point a space of concision

gritted eye analysis⁹

What masks

What power¹⁰

to grow against this

hosted masculinity¹¹

to rename by changing

a behavioral gap¹²

To be a thing of new gravity

in the tenuous

intimacy theater¹³

1. An inheritance of undershirts. This extra lady hotline. A reputation for independent he-love, distracted beer sensibilities, money toilets, and tone attack captains.

2. “When I was a very small boy / very small boys talked to me / now that we’ve grown up together / they’re afraid of what they see”

3. Otherwise known in certain circles as an “I statement.” But instead, he saw through a 35 mm lens at all times.

4. You boxes are truly men inside. It’s a lovely master destiny, society’s carving points growing a thing.

5. “Hateful things: a man who has nothing in particular to recommend him discusses all sorts of subjects at random as though he knew everything.”

6. “… a pervasive cluster of forces ranging from physical brutality to control of consciousness, which suggests that an enormous potential counterforce is having to be restrained.”

7. For every himself, call it a bottom-feeder. “For the suit men of power.” We turn among ourselves. The traditional boss ladder excuse, the cocktail I-am-so-manly-I-don’t-care glances club, that no-brainer hell circle.

8. See Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and Page Act of 1875.

9. “I don’t need your help. I just need you to recognize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly, you stupid motherfucker, you know?”

10. You poor expectation. You thing-master you.

11. He was never told how to act, but he was measured in other ways.

12. “Están ahí, sí. Pero no existen.”

13. “Whatever living beings there may be, whether they are weak or strong, omitting none. Outward and unbounded, freed from hatred and ill-wi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Frankenpo
• Visa
• Portrait of Grandfather as a Cowboy
• Ultraman’s Lament for Shin Hayata, Year 1 / 1年
• What I Like About You 1
• Teaching Men to be Emotionally Honest
• Gyoshoku Danshi
• Rajesh Goes to the Stud Club
• Rajesh’s Theme
• Self-Portrait as Hikaru, Shining Light
• Footnotes to a Murder in the Third Degree
• She’s People! 10 Apologies
• Dear I Ching, Am I A Real Man?
• Stomach Me, Delicious World
• Maggie and Tony
• Hello Stranger
• We Learn to be Men
• What I Like About You 2
• Dear I Ching, What is the Legacy of Colonization in my Family?
• Notorious Rain
• Ultraman’s Lament for Shin Hayata, Year 5 / 5年
• I Bite with Inaccurate Teeth
• Manifest Destiny for Sassy Choir
• Portrait of Grandfather as a Robot Cowboy
• Now I Know What it’s Like
• Dear I Ching, How Does Heteropatriarchy Live on Through Me?
• Wanted Bodies Become Animals
• Empire Strikes
• Drowsiness Through My Kiss
• Descending, Throttle Early, Savagely
• Letter to Chow Mo-Wan
• My Boy Band Throws National Shade
• Ultraman’s Lament for Shin Hayata, Year 10 / 10年
• The Goat Man Cancels his Enemies
• Self-Portrait as Voltron
• Ritual Against Toxic Masculinity
• As the Light Diminishes Again
• The Monstrosity: Notes Towards a Frankenpo
• Notes