Craig Santos Perez

Last commentator in paradise

Eat, pray, orientalize

Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith once wrote that the term "research" is "probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world's vocabulary...It is so powerful that indigenous people even write poetry about research."

the R-word. of course, there are dirtier words. and there are dirtier racialized words. and not only are there dirty words, but there are dirty racialized representations, whole narratives that cause those represented to feel anger, outrage, and distrust (and sometimes silence). on the non-othered hand, these narratives inspire some people to "Eat, Pray, Orientalize."

more dirty words in the indigenous world's vocab: National Geographic.

Racial narcissism: Honesty, humor, and consequences

Hello, is this thing on? Test, test. Something must be wrong because no one, not a single e-soul, commented on my last post. I thought for sure my "No Change" poem would provoke at least 50 comments. Hey staff of Jacket2, I think this thing is broken. With all the money at UPENN,  I'd think you could afford to put a comment function in.

Oh well, if you'd like to comment, you can always comment via my Facebook (but you have to friend me first) or at my blog, where I will cross post.

One Facebook message I did receive about my last post said:

In which the reader is introduced to a man of humanity

Dear Readers,

Iʻll say it again: blogging is dead. Thus, my 2011 resolution to Facebook everyday. As my 2,000 closest Facebook friends can attest, Iʻve been keeping that resolution with aplomb.

This is not blogging, letʻs get that straight. This is what we call "Commentaring." As the mutiracial doctor says: "It is difficult to get the news from the Poetry Foundation Harriet Blog, yet Facebookers update their statuses miserably everyday for the lack of what is Commentaried upon there." 

Iʻm told this first post should gently hook, dear reader. So as all good writers "of color" know, the best way to get attention in this here "Po-Biz" is to "drive by" (as one white-american critic recently phrased it) in a traditionally white institutional space and take down a well-endowed white poet, preferably a straight white male poet, and preferably a straight white male poet who writes "racially complex" poems.

I can see it now: