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Open Books: Events
April 15, 2010 07:30 PM
DON MEE CHOI & CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ
The Morning News is Exciting ($16 Action) features South Korea-born Don Mee Choi’s artistic meditations on cultural, military, and gender hegemony. Her pieces move from a charged, choppy sound-translation of a poem by the Martinique poet Monchoachi to the re-telling of a Korean folktale. Family struggles, internally and within overall cultural systems, are prominent here -- "home is nothing and so are you" -- and her work is ever-powered by disarming wit -- "Nation building is kind and generous. It is common to decline it."
Craig Santos Perez, a native of Guaghan (Guam), offers a complex book of poetry and collaged language, from Unincorporated Territory [Saina] (Omnidawn $15.95). His work fuses historic and commercial texts with personal material. Caustic humor abounds, like these lines taken from travel brochures -- "'I like seeing animals in their | authentic | environment' 'be- / cause even dying | cultures have | a wild side to / flaunt.''' Perez's sweet relationship with his grandmother weaves a fine metaphoric thread through the collection -- "she's lost / so much / weight / hair / this year // when I help / her stand / or walk / I can see / her weight / in the struggle / of her eyes / but I can barely / feel what / remains."
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