000			02505cam a2200337 i 4500
001			on1345220012
003			OCoLC
005			20231228134325.0
008			220921t20232023mnu b 000 p eng d
010			_a 2022946512
040			_aYDX _beng _erda _cYDX _dBDX _dWIM _dBKL _dNYP _dIMD _dGP5 _dVP@ _dYDX _dOCLCO _dOCLCF _dKSU _dCLE _dPAU _dNGU _dIAI _dNFG
020			_a9781644452370 _q(paperback)
020			_a1644452375 _q(paperback)
035			_a(OCoLC)1345220012
092			_a811.6 _bM296
049			_aNFGA
100	1		_aMao, Sally Wen, _eauthor. _9253841
245	1	4	_aThe kingdom of surfaces : _bpoems / _cSally Wen Mao.
264		1	_aMinneapolis, Minnesota : _bGraywolf Press, _c[2023]
264		4	_c©2023
300			_a126 pages ; _c23 cm
336			_atext _btxt _2rdacontent
337			_aunmediated _bn _2rdamedia
338			_avolume _bnc _2rdacarrier
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (pages 123-124).
520			_a"In The Kingdom of Surfaces, award-winning poet Sally Wen Mao examines art and history--especially the provenance of objects such as porcelain, silk, and pearls--to frame an important conversation on beauty, empire, commodification, and violence. In lyric poems and wide-ranging sequences, Mao interrogates gendered expressions such as the contemporary "leftover women," which denotes unmarried women, and the historical "castle-toppler," a term used to describe a concubine whose beauty ruins an emperor and his empire. These poems also explore the permeability of object and subject through the history of Chinese women in America, labor practices around the silk loom, and the ongoing violence against Asian people during the COVID-19 pandemic. At its heart, The Kingdom of Surfaces imagines the poet wandering into a Western fantasy, which covets, imitates, and appropriates Chinese aesthetics via Chinamania and the nineteenth-century Aesthetic movement, while perpetuating state violence upon actual lives. The title poem is a speculative recasting of "Through the Looking-Glass," set in a surreal topsy-turvy version of the China-themed 2015 Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala. The Kingdom of Surfaces is a brilliantly conceived call for those who recognize the horrors of American exceptionalism to topple the empire that values capital over lives and power over liberation."--Publisher.
650		0	_aAmerican poetry _y21st century. _966237
650		0	_aAmerican poetry _xChinese American authors.
655		7	_aPoetry. _2lcgft _96749
994			_aC0 _bNFG
999			_c378289 _d378289