DISCOMFORT IS ETHICAL
A conversation with Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi on badminton, poems punching in the right directions, and the "stranger and more unsettling boss beyond the white person"
My friend Kevin Sampsell texted me a photo of Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi’s poem “hapas are so much hotter than anything” (captioned, “oh my god this book”), and I galloped over to Powell’s to secure a copy of Disintegration Made Plain and Easy (Pizama Press). Rarely have I encountered something so funny outside of my own poetry / Don Quixote. It’s a perversely satiric collection of poems that address identity with complete irreverence and complete seriousness simultaneously. I love Kiik’s poems because, to misquote the writer Stephen Dunn, “I love the logic of oxymorons… the paradox helps us not feel insane [and makes us laugh so hard we shit our pants].”
Kiik flings down the ego and smashes it with a stentorian laughtrack. In “About the Author”, Kiik writes, “He makes you guard his books and sell them to yourself. Instead of reading aloud he stares right at you for an hour and reads silently in his mind.”
My first chapbook, “How to be the Worst Laziest Fattest Most Incontinent Piece-of-Shit in the World EVER,” also features an “about the author” pastiche: “Please address all fanmail to Miss Expanding Universe; light-of-my-life; fire-of-my-loins; good-sucking genius…” and so on.
I noticed not a few parallels like these between Kiik’s writing and my own, and did 108 full prostrations to the indifferent multiverse, praying that one day we might do a reading together.
This interview is part of the manifestation process.
(1) Do you have a mentor?
I’ve had some phenomenal mentors in my life. K. Wayne Yang (aka la paperson) who wrote A THIRD UNIVERSITY IS POSSIBLE. And C. Ree the visual artist, writer and film programmer. The poets Sandra and Ben Doller. These folks have been critical for me as a writer and teacher and a person. Some of the most important opportunities I’ve had are owed to them.
(2) What is the single greatest bit of advice on writing that you’ve ever heard?
I might be butchering or misremembering this; I think it comes from a George Saunders essay. But it’s the idea that we can / should come to the page ready to improvise. There doesn’t need to be much of a plan. Maybe just a setting, a few props. Maybe just a voice with a desire. But just sit down and see what you sound like on that day.
Also, my friend Aaron Fai told me about the Pomodoro Technique, which has been key for short focused writing sessions.
(3) What are you reading?
CLUTCH by Emily Nemens. And THE WEIRD edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer.
(4) What do you eat for breakfast?
Oatmeal, chia seeds, hemp hearts, honey, almonds, soy milk.
Why is this breakfast my life? All the most unsexy things have happened to my body, gout, shingles, high cholesterol, diabetes, ulcers.
(5) What is the worst poem you’ve ever written (bonus if you’re willing to share it)?
I’ve written so many embarrassing poems. Hundreds. For a while there, I was writing a love poem every week for my partner. Looking at them now is sort of like looking into a high school diary. I’ll try to find the first poem I ever published. I was nonstop reading Pablo Neruda. And even today, I still write a ton of clunkers.
(6) Can you please provide a bullet point list of Kiik’s indispensable wisdom?
I’m not a wise person at all, but some things that have been so key for me:
Find 1-2 writer friends you love and keep them around you as much as you can. They’ll remind you to take yourself and your practice seriously.
A rigorous exercise routine is critical for balancing a rigorous art practice.
Start playing badminton. You don’t have to get any good. I’m not any good. It’s fun and energizing even if you don’t know what you’re doing out there.
Experience literature in whatever way works best for you. If I waited for a moment of quiet and calm in my life, I’d almost never read. But audiobooks have kept me reading in a different way; I can experience literature while commuting, washing dishes and folding laundry.
Go to therapy, prioritize your mental health.
Seriously, try badminton. It’s the best game, and you’ll be around so many cool and kind people if you play. The game draws them in like a magnet.
(7) Who do you read again and again?
Anne Sexton. George Saunders. Aimee Bender. Haruki Murakami. Octavia Butler. Isaac Bashevis Singer. Kazuo Ishiguro. Lee Child. Roald Dahl. Laura Knetzger. Lynda Barry. Dav Pilkey. Raina Telgemeier.
(8) What sustains you?
Standup comedy. Beth Stelling. Hannibal Burress. Tig Notaro. Maria Bamford. Kyle Kinnane. Gary Gulman. Chelsea Peretti. Nikki Glasser. Pete Holmes. Erica Rhodes.
And badminton. Seriously, go play some badminton. You’ll love it.
And here’s the first poem I ever published. Oh my gosh, I even called it “untitled.”
I do not believe you dismantled my heart
My heart was unwound before I knew you
A heart is mended through longing
You have taken nothing from me
I am richer now in my torture
than when my torture could not
fathom my loyalty before it
There is nothing to forgive
[Ed note: OH GOD MAKE IT STOP…]
The best love is done without forgiveness
(9) As I was finalizing the interview, I realized that I still have more questions for you. “hapas are so much hotter than anything” is one of the funniest poems I’ve ever read. When a poem induces a huge laugh, I intuitively feel that it is a success. And after reading your poem, I was inspired to return to and revise a poem I wrote over a decade ago.
It’s called “Mixed race girls are the most attractive breed of women.”
But I am also practicing Buddhism, which discourages introducing separation and disharmony, so I feel some hesitancy around making jokes that treat whiteness as a pejorative.
Do you consider the feelings of white people when you are writing about whiteness? What are your thoughts on the roles of irony and morality in poetry? I’ve also attached my mixed race poem which I have mixed feelings about.
Firstly, I love your poem, “MIXED RACE GIRLS ARE THE MOST ATTRACTIVE BREED OF WOMEN.” I feel like our work is on similar wavelengths. One of my favorite moments in the poem is where the speaker, getting some attention from “the guy fixing the electrical socket,” feels “special, like a new and exciting breed of human, / a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, or an X-Man, perhaps.”
I find that moment to be so interesting and honest and vulnerable. And for me, in my life, I’ve found that attention of any kind can be intoxicating. Especially when it has to do with physical attraction, which is something I’ve always been starved for. I’ve found myself thrilled by any compliment, even when there’s something weird, unsettling, maybe objectifying at the core.
I’d say in my work, that poem “hapas are so much hotter than anything,” I’m conscious that I’m trafficking in subjects that some readers may find to be sensitive, taboo, offensive. If I’m being honest, I care about everyone’s feelings, white people, people of color, even the celebrities I reference who will never set eyes on these poems.
But I don’t think that poem works, I don’t think the voice channeled in that poem works, without attempting to produce some discomfort in a reader. White reader. Reader of color. That discomfort is necessary. The discomfort is the occasion for the poem. I suppose I think that discomfort is ethical. The Asian speaker of the poem is working through their discomfort at having been offered an unsettling compliment. As they untangle the compliment, all sorts of nasty things pop out.
Something I do think about for a poem like this, is I feel if there’s a punch to be punched, I shouldn’t punch down. The speaker wants to punch out at the structures of racism around them. Those structures, institutions, are bullies, reserve power and judgement for themselves, and therefore the speaker is punching up. But speaker is also aware that white people protected and privileged by structural racism are made uncomfortable anytime this is addressed. The speaker has to be worried about this. Speaker is thinking, as I investigate, I must say these things aloud, but also I have to find a job. The person who says yes or no to hiring me will be white. I need to rent an apartment. My landlord will be white. In some ways the poem is about a speaker needing to walk back comments that could be offensive to a white person. They need to do this to be safe.
Once, while teaching an Ethnic Studies course, my mentor said, “Let’s be clear, this is not an I-hate-white-people class.” And I’ve often thought, I’m not interested in writing I-hate-white-people poems. I’m not totally sure why, but I think there’s a bigger, stranger and more unsettling boss beyond the white person. I suppose it’s an aggregation of laws, systems, norms.
These things are up to interpretation, but I feel pleased and honored that you like the poem. That it is a cousin and a support to your poem now. And so I get the feeling the punches are pointed in the right directions.
Thank you for your contribution to American Arts and Letters,
Ash