A White Poet Borrows a Chinese Name and Sets Off Fireworks
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
SEPT. 8, 2015
This year?s edition of the anthology ?Best American Poetry? has come under criticism for including a poem by a white poet writing under a Chinese pseudonym, touching off intense online debate about diversity, inclusion and racial entitlement in the poetry world.
?The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve? was submitted to the anthology, published on Tuesday by Scribner, by a little-known poet named Michael Derrick Hudson, under the pseudonym Yi-Fen Chou. After the poem?s selection, Mr. Hudson revealed his identity to the volume?s editor, Sherman Alexie, who decided to include it anyway, along with a note explaining the use of the pseudonym.
In an essay on the Best American Anthology blog on Monday, Mr. Alexie, a Native American, defended his decision, saying he had paid closer attention to the poem because of the author?s name ? a kind of ?racial nepotism,? he said ? but ultimately chose it because he liked it.
When Mr. Hudson revealed his use of a pseudonym, Mr. Alexie wrote, he debated how to deal with this instance of ?colonial theft,? but decided that dropping the poem ?would have cast doubt on every poem I have chosen? and ?implied that I chose poems based only on identity.?
?I hadn?t been fooled by its ?Chinese-ness? because it contained nothing that I recognized as being inherently Chinese or Asian,? Mr. Alexie wrote.
Mr. Hudson, who works as an indexer at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., did not answer messages requesting comment. But in the biographical note in ?Best American Poetry,? he explained that he often sent poems out under the name Yi-Fen Chou.
?As a strategy for ?placing? poems this has been quite successful for me,? he said, noting that ?The Bees? had been rejected 40 times under his own name but only nine times under the pseudonym before it was printed by the journal Prairie Schooner.
?If indeed this is one of the best American poems of 2015, it took quite a bit of effort to get it into print,? Mr. Hudson wrote. (Poems under his own name have appeared in numerous journals, including Poetry, this year.)
Mr. Hudson?s blunt explanation drew outrage and ridicule online. ?Never thought I?d see poets using yellowface to get published in 2015 but here we are,? Saeed Jones, a poet and the literary editor of Buzzfeed, said on Twitter. Jezebel ran a post under the headline ?If You?re a White Man Who Can?t Get Published Under Your Own Name, Take the Hint.?
Ken Chen, a poet and executive director of the Asian American Writers Workshop, said Mr. Hudson was guilty of ?cynical mischief? in the service of a ?reactionary fantasy.?
?He believes that he?s being cheated, and things will only improve if writers of color are virtualized away,? Mr. Chen said in an interview. ?If only they didn?t really exist, and were just white guys with pseudonyms.?
Rigoberto Gonz?lez, a poet who teaches at Rutgers University, Newark, said that Mr. Hudson had inadvertently ?given a language to the anxiety that?s out there? among nonwhite writers: that they are included as tokens.
?He?s buying into this notion of ?I?ll be noticed because I have this ethnic name,? ? Mr. Gonz?lez said. ?But that?s what many writers of color are trying to avoid. We just happen to have ethnic names. But we are getting published because we are also good poets.?
On Twitter on Monday, Mr. Alexie found a silver lining, writing, ?I?m exhausted by the Best American Poetry mess, but wow, how cool that so many people are crazy-passionate about poems.?
Mr. Gonz?lez, however, said that including Mr. Hudson had distracted from the anthology.
?There are good poems and other new names in the anthology, but all we?ve been hearing about is this guy,? Mr. Gonz?lez said. ?It?s really a shame.?
By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER
SEPT. 8, 2015
This year?s edition of the anthology ?Best American Poetry? has come under criticism for including a poem by a white poet writing under a Chinese pseudonym, touching off intense online debate about diversity, inclusion and racial entitlement in the poetry world.
?The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve? was submitted to the anthology, published on Tuesday by Scribner, by a little-known poet named Michael Derrick Hudson, under the pseudonym Yi-Fen Chou. After the poem?s selection, Mr. Hudson revealed his identity to the volume?s editor, Sherman Alexie, who decided to include it anyway, along with a note explaining the use of the pseudonym.
In an essay on the Best American Anthology blog on Monday, Mr. Alexie, a Native American, defended his decision, saying he had paid closer attention to the poem because of the author?s name ? a kind of ?racial nepotism,? he said ? but ultimately chose it because he liked it.
When Mr. Hudson revealed his use of a pseudonym, Mr. Alexie wrote, he debated how to deal with this instance of ?colonial theft,? but decided that dropping the poem ?would have cast doubt on every poem I have chosen? and ?implied that I chose poems based only on identity.?
?I hadn?t been fooled by its ?Chinese-ness? because it contained nothing that I recognized as being inherently Chinese or Asian,? Mr. Alexie wrote.
Mr. Hudson, who works as an indexer at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., did not answer messages requesting comment. But in the biographical note in ?Best American Poetry,? he explained that he often sent poems out under the name Yi-Fen Chou.
?As a strategy for ?placing? poems this has been quite successful for me,? he said, noting that ?The Bees? had been rejected 40 times under his own name but only nine times under the pseudonym before it was printed by the journal Prairie Schooner.
?If indeed this is one of the best American poems of 2015, it took quite a bit of effort to get it into print,? Mr. Hudson wrote. (Poems under his own name have appeared in numerous journals, including Poetry, this year.)
Mr. Hudson?s blunt explanation drew outrage and ridicule online. ?Never thought I?d see poets using yellowface to get published in 2015 but here we are,? Saeed Jones, a poet and the literary editor of Buzzfeed, said on Twitter. Jezebel ran a post under the headline ?If You?re a White Man Who Can?t Get Published Under Your Own Name, Take the Hint.?
Ken Chen, a poet and executive director of the Asian American Writers Workshop, said Mr. Hudson was guilty of ?cynical mischief? in the service of a ?reactionary fantasy.?
?He believes that he?s being cheated, and things will only improve if writers of color are virtualized away,? Mr. Chen said in an interview. ?If only they didn?t really exist, and were just white guys with pseudonyms.?
Rigoberto Gonz?lez, a poet who teaches at Rutgers University, Newark, said that Mr. Hudson had inadvertently ?given a language to the anxiety that?s out there? among nonwhite writers: that they are included as tokens.
?He?s buying into this notion of ?I?ll be noticed because I have this ethnic name,? ? Mr. Gonz?lez said. ?But that?s what many writers of color are trying to avoid. We just happen to have ethnic names. But we are getting published because we are also good poets.?
On Twitter on Monday, Mr. Alexie found a silver lining, writing, ?I?m exhausted by the Best American Poetry mess, but wow, how cool that so many people are crazy-passionate about poems.?
Mr. Gonz?lez, however, said that including Mr. Hudson had distracted from the anthology.
?There are good poems and other new names in the anthology, but all we?ve been hearing about is this guy,? Mr. Gonz?lez said. ?It?s really a shame.?