AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

VS: Live at the Asian American Literature Festival with Cathy Linh Che, Joseph Legaspi, and Sarah Gambito

Danez Smith: Hey, this is Danez Smith.

Franny Choi: And this is Franny Choi.

Danez Smith: And you’re listening to VS, a podcast where poets confront the ideas that move them.

Franny Choi: Brought to you by the Poetry Foundation and Postloudness. And we are excited to bring you this very special live show, which we recorded at the Asian American Literature Festival here in DC.

Danez Smith: Yeah. Honestly, it was one of the better-curated festivals that I’ve ever seen. If you get a chance to check it out, check it. We got a chance to sit down with Joseph Legaspi, Sarah Gambito, and Cathy Linh Che at this live show to talk poems and throw a little shade and do all the things that one does on a rooftop at a fancy DC hotel.

Franny Choi: Yes, and to talk about Kundiman, the space for Asian American poets and fiction writers, which has been so instrumental in our community. So without any further adieu, let’s get into this very special live show from DC at the Asian American Literature Festival.

(SOUND EFFECTS)

Event host: Make some noise for Danez Smith and Franny Choi!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

Danez Smith: She’s the Mary J. Blige of Asian American poetry, Franny Choi.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) And they’re a bridge between starshine and poppers, Danez Smith!

Danez Smith: Oh wow, that’s so kind of you. And you’re here with us at VS at the Asian American Literature Festival!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

Franny Choi: Yeah! We’re so excited to be here at the Eaton DC in this very sunny rooftop bar. This is a VS legends of Kundiman edition, which is pretty fucking fly. So we are really excited to host three incredible powerhouses in the world of Asian American literature, particularly for their contributions to creating and sustaining this amazing space called Kundiman. Make some noise if you have touched the realm of Kundiman in some way, either as a fellow or some other way. Make some noise.

Danez Smith: You donated—

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Franny Choi: Kundiman family, that’s what I mean.

Danez Smith: What was your first time like at Kundiman, Franny? Set the scene.

Franny Choi: Okay. It was 2016… or 2017.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Well, what happened was I was about to go into my first year of an MFA program. I had heard the horror stories, you know what I mean?

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

Franny Choi: So I was like, I’m gonna go to Kundiman, figure out a foundation and then I can use that to travel through the bullshit of school and white institutions with, you know what I mean? And then I was like, and then maybe, years later, I’ll go back. And then I went to my first year of school and white institutions and I was like, send me back!

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: So I went immediately back as soon as the year ended. But the first time at Kundiman I was—I’m the kind of person that doesn’t understand that she’s like a softie, you know what I mean?

Danez Smith: You don’t?

Franny Choi: Okay, listen, it’s been a long journey, okay? So I went and I was like, I bet I’m not even gonna be that moved.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I bet I won’t even care about this space. Whatever, I’m hard as fuck. And then four minutes later I was like sobbing and telling my life story. Like, “Because my grandma, when she came,” you know? It was me rediscovering my own wussy tendencies.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) I love it.

Franny Choi: For liberation and change. What about you?

Danez Smith: Let’s see, my first time at Kundiman was next year.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I meant for Cave. What was your first year at Cave like? (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Okay, Cave, Cave. My first year at Cave Canem—when I was still calling it Cave Can-OM—(LAUGHS) I was a wee lad of 21 years old, still very much a slam poet. Like, I thought that was my goal in life, to get a 10.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: It was sweet. You know, I think Cave really opened me up to the vast landscape of poetry. It was so local and about slam for me, and I went to Cave, and I was like, oh shit, people write books, and oh, there’s journals. I’d also just never been around so many people who had such different views and skills and questions around poetry. It changed my life. And they started pointing me to other organizations, you know, they were like, check out these Kundiman poets, check out these CantoMundo poets, check out these whatever it was.

Franny Choi: For sure.

Danez Smith: I’m appreciative to spaces like Kundiman and Cave Canem for how they continue to nurture us but also bring us towards new ways of imagining what that nurturing looks like.

Franny Choi: Yeah, for sure.

Danez Smith: My life is sort of pre-CC, post-CC. BCC, ACC? BCC, what is that—oh that’s like, almost BBC, so we’re not gonna go quite there. BBC, it stands for British Broadcasting Company, and white people’s fetish. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Those nature documentaries, though. Never slander David Attenborough in my presence. Anyway, Kundiman, yeah—we’re going down into a weird place. But I mean, the point of all of our rambling is that these spaces truly matter, you know?

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

Franny Choi: And there are places like Cave, like Kundiman, that serve as these spaces for respite and healing and growth in the midst of all the fuckery that exists. But there are also other spaces that are being created every day and being built from the ground up that are local to communities as well. So like, I don’t know, I guess if I was going to say anything, it’s like, if you’re not seeing the space that you need around you to grow in community with the people that you love, let’s talk about making it happen, you know?

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm. Talk to Franny.

Franny Choi: Well, talk to each other.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Franny Choi: I mean, I’m busy, okay.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: But let’s bring up our first guest. She is the author of Split, which one the Kundiman Prize. She is the executive director of Cave—of Cave?

Danez Smith: Why not, sure!

Franny Choi: She is the executive director of Kundiman. She’s a badass motherfucker. Please make a lot of noise for—

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (IN UNISON) Cathy Linh Che!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

Cathy Linh Che: Hello, everybody! This is great. Thank you for having me. This is a poem in my mother’s voice. She was a refugee from the Vietnam War, with my father, on a little boat. They ended up in the Philippines. And during that time, Francis Ford Coppola wanted Vietnamese people to be in his Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now, so they hired the refugees from the refugee camp, so that you can have something that smells like the real thing. So, my parents. Here you go.

(READS POEM)

Becoming Ghost

I unhook the photograph
from its nail,
needle the aperture

& find my youth
history, a washout 
of dieting & wedding cake.

In those days,
I dreamt less
of a private bed chamber

and more a future
without smoke. 
I sleep on this slab of a bed

in the town of Baler, 
in an elementary 
schoolhouse rented out.

Coppola asks 
that I execute 
a facsimile

of an adjacent life––
What a relief
to play the enemy

and to find her 
a frightened 22 year old
shooting at a UH1 Huey.

Revenge foretells my living
well. In those days,
I was frugal with words,

opting to hide them instead
like gold poured
into a molar,

or cotton gauze
stuffed into a cheek
to stave off

the rattle 
bitten into 
my gums.

* * *

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Franny Choi: First of all, thank you again for that beautiful poem. I’m so excited for this next project. But we want to start off with a question that we ask each guest on every episode of VS—which, when you asked for questions earlier, I forgot to mention this one, so, surprise!

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) It’s easy though, it’s easy.

Franny Choi: We want to start off by asking you, what’s moving you these days?

Cathy Linh Che: I don’t know! (LAUGHS) Oh no, I shouldn’t say that, but whatever!

Danez Smith: Yes! (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: So quite literally, sex is very moving these days, so yes!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Franny Choi: I love applauding for sex.

Cathy Linh Che: Yeah, I mean, I will say, my first book is all about sexual violence and being a person who has been sexually violated as a person, as a young person, an adult person. And just, I’m moved by very consensual excellent sex.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Franny Choi: Give it up for very consensual excellent sex, everyone.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Danez Smith: Any tips for our folks out there? (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: (LAUGHS) I have no tips, I’m sorry.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: I think maybe not on the podcast, maybe out on the terrace when we’re all done with all this, we could talk.

Danez Smith: Yeah.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Yes.

Cathy Linh Che: About the sex.

Franny Choi: Record the after hours Cathy Linh Che sex advice podcast.

Cathy Linh Che: Yes.

Franny Choi: Brought to you by Kundiman. (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: I accept the advice. I don’t have to dole it out.

Danez Smith: Oh wow! Oh that was sexy. I felt a little something in that. Okay.

(ALL LAUGH)

Danez Smith: Thank you for that beautiful poem that you read for us.

Cathy Linh Che: Thank you.

Danez Smith: So your parents were extras in Apocalypse Now. They went to the actual refugee camp to hire these refugees. What do your parents—how do they sort of conceive of what happened to them? Do they look at it like, we were in this cool-ass movie, or was this crazy to them? And how are you, as the daughter, looking back at that situation?

Cathy Linh Che: That’s a great question. I think they were very pragmatic about it. They said one, they were very bored in the refugee camp, because there’s nothing to do. You can’t work. You can’t leave, really. I mean, you can walk around. This was in Mandaluyong, which is at the Jose Fabella Center, which is outside of Manila. And I’ve visited before. But essentially they were in a place just waiting to have a state. You know, a place to live. And so, they saw it as fun. They thought, hey, we’re getting paid. Because they couldn’t get paid earlier. And they just were fine with it. But when I do probe them a little bit, they’re like, well, yeah you have to do what they say. Like, my mother playing the enemy is not a choice that she made at 22, you know. It was, I need to make my 80 pesos a day, so I’m going to do what they ask me to do, even if I’m scared to death. So, there is, on my end, a different kind of sensitivity to what I think of as an oppressive force. Whereas for them, they see it as fun, it’s kind of cool that they were in movie history. It’s not as if they’re not aware of like, the other frames I put on it about sort of labor, capitalism, representation, and all of these things, but I think that their primary concerns are survival and making a new life. So it’s a different stance.

Franny Choi: For sure. For sure. Are there new questions that are coming up in the writing of this new project? Or new challenges?

Cathy Linh Che: I think there has always been the challenge for me of writing their story. I actually have to give a little shout-out to the director of the festival, Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis, who kept asking me, “How’s your Apocalypse Now project going?” I was like, “It’s not.” He was like, “I think you should work on it.” (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Cathy Linh Che: So I think the challenge was also, because the topic is so rich and because people know so much about Apocalypse Now, there are all these scholars, it’s taught in a lot of Vietnam War classes, so I felt under read, under researched, like I wasn’t researching it well enough. So I think that was always a problem, and then I just decided to do one thing and go with it, and so that’s where I’m at right now. Yeah.

Franny Choi: Earlier, when we were corresponding about things we might talk about, you mentioned that you think of your work as the executive director of Kundiman as a kind of writing. Or as tied to your process of writing.

Cathy Linh Che: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Can you say a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Cathy Linh Che: I do have to say a couple things. One, I like this idea of solidarity. So, Kundiman would not exist without Cave Canem. I mean, Sarah and Joseph co-founded it. They’re coming after me. But, we were mentored into being by, you know, an organization that serves Black poets, right. And there was a space that Sarah and Joseph saw, a model that we could sort of utilize to sort of create our own space. So that was really important. And I think as executive director, taking on someone else’s vision, part of the writing of it is to sort of listen to the ancestors. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: And also create new spaces. So I think programming is a very creative act for me. So our literary karaoke reading is literally something that I was eating hot pot in LA with the people at Kaya Press, and they’re like, “What should we do?” I was like, “I’ve always wanted to do a karaoke reading.” They’re like, “How is that gonna work?” I’m like, “We’re gonna try it.” So, it’s like, we’re gonna do that Saturday night. That’s a huge part of my writing process, or creative process. I think writing for me, you know, I wrote about sexual violence quite a bit, and it was a need to write into silence. People weren’t talking about it. So what are the silenced, unheard histories or spaces that you can see or can correct? So we’re doing also a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon for Asian American Literature. There are so many voices and names that are not on that list of Asian American writers page. On Sunday, as a group, we’re literally collectively coming together to add to that. I mean, that’s like, the world’s knowledge that we’re creating together. So I think that creating these programs with Dan and Kyle together in this collective way feels very much like writing into the world what hasn’t existed or hasn’t been spoken of enough.

Danez Smith: Hm. I think what we’re talking about right now is a huge thing about collective voice. Both in what you’re doing in your poems, in sort of reimagining this history and story of your parents, but also how you’re authoring this community towards a goal now.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: And I’m wondering what cautions or dreams do you have for all of the collectives that you’re sort of writing into and towards?

Cathy Linh Che: I’ll start with dreams. I guess my dreams are—so, one dream I still do have a lot is I think a lot about the way that Asian American literature for me existed outside of a context. So, the desire to root it within an understanding of Asian American history, movement history, activism history, alongside understanding what the cultural effects of that were. And then thinking a lot what this festival does is to imagine new possibility. What are the forms that we’ve been given, and what are the forms that we can continue to create together. So those are definitely big dreams I have. And I think I would love to see more solidarity within and among different cross-racial and intersectional sort of spaces that are created very intentionally. I think that would be a huge dream that is happening. In terms of cautions, I hate this idea of a zero sum game where there’s any sort of looking at the tokens who get recognized as, therefore I am less in any kind of way. So I think that understanding that as a collective, if the more abundantly we can think, the more generously we can think about ourselves and each other, the better our communities can be. And not to imagine that we only have so much space and attention for art, you know, and for making change. So I think that would be a caution I would have.

Danez Smith: Beautiful. Would you be so gracious as to read one more poem for us?

Cathy Linh Che: Yeah! Thank you so much. Okay, so this is also in my mother’s voice.

Danez Smith: Shout-out to mom.

Cathy Linh Che: Yay, Mom! Oh my gosh.

Danez Smith: Number one prompt.

Cathy Linh Che: I love my mother. Oh my god, we talked for an hour on Sunday and it was all church gossip.

(ALL LAUGH)

Cathy Linh Che: It was like, mmm, so and so… went to this person’s funeral and they didn’t show up and this and that.

Danez Smith: (GASPS)

Cathy Linh Che: Yes!

Danez Smith: Ooo, girl!

Cathy Linh Che: Go Mom. Oh, Mom, don’t listen about the sex. I am still a virgin. Thank you.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: We’ll put a mom trigger warning somewhere in there. (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: Okay. This is from my mother’s voice again.

(READS POEM)

Becoming Ghost

In Saigon, I wore
my áo dài sidesaddle

on my husband’s xe Honda,
the atmosphere a slurry

of exhaust 
& humidity.

My hair dragged like a black
curtain through traffic.

Engines riled,
multiplying.

Already, it’s early.
Here, Coppola dresses down,

shirtless, sometimes, less
fancy director,

more man of the people
gone mad.

The gray waves zipper
along the shore.

Coppola: I want it to smell 
like the real thing.

I want to tell him:
the real thing

is a landscape
of work and death –

the names of our ancestors
slack in our mouths,

just the art of loving
your family line enough

to reproduce it.

* * *

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Danez Smith: Whew! One more time for Cathy Linh Che!

Franny Choi: Cathy Linh Che, everyone.

Danez Smith: Alright, onto our next guest. Our next guest is one of the cofounders of Kundiman. Author of Imago and Threshold and many chapbooks—is it Aviary, Bestiary? Oh my god, I read that for a year. I want you to know that it didn’t leave my backpack for like a year.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: I love that chapbook so very much. Also working on another collection. One of my favorite poets in the world. Everybody please give it up for Joseph O. Legaspi, coming to the stage!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

Joseph Legaspi: Good afternoon, y’all. Danez and Franny, I mean, they’re fantastic. And I love looking at all these faces. This is like AWP for Asian Americans, which is way better. (LAUGHS) I love creation myths, so I decided to revise the biggest creation myth ever written, which is the Book of Genesis, right. So this is called “The Homosexual Book of Genesis.”

(READS POEM)

It is a short book.

God in His righteous glory conjures up

everything: the separation of Light

and Dark, firmaments, land and sea,

vegetation and beasts. On the sixth day

God, in His image, creates Adam

and Adam, sons of His patriarchal regime.

Then God rests. Then, no begetting.

No litanies of descendants. Hence,

fatal rivalry between brothers, golden calf

worship and heavy rain are avoided. No exodus,

locusts, thorns, crucifixion and resurrection.

God rests absolutely, the seventh day eternal.

The serpent remains, coiled up a fruitless

tree. But as God’s will, there calcified

in the larynxes of Adam and Adam: desire.

* * *

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

Joseph Legaspi: In the hot seat.

Danez Smith: You are in the hot seat. Are you ready for this? For one million dollars…

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Joseph, thank you so much for that poem, that beautiful poem. And I, too, read your poems over and over when I was just trying to figure out what poetry was (LAUGHS) and what it might mean to be as an Asian American poet.

Joseph Legaspi: Have you figured it out?

Franny Choi: No!

Joseph Legaspi: Because I wanna know.

Danez Smith: I think that’s the trick of being a poet is that the longer you ask that question, the further you are from the answer. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Right, right, yeah. For sure, for sure. What is moving you these days?

Joseph Legaspi: This seems kind of simplistic, but it’s not. Queer Eye, actually.

Danez Smith: Queer Eye!

Franny Choi: Okay!

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: It’s so good.

Joseph Legaspi: It’s so good. And every episode, we’re just bawling. David and I, my husband David and I. And also Pose.

Franny Choi: Oh yeah.

Danez Smith: Oh Pose is just tear juice.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Tear juice?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: I don’t know if you guys have seen Season Two, Episode Three.

Franny Choi: Which one is that.

Joseph Legaspi: Candy Ferocity.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: Ohhh!

Joseph Legaspi: Right? But for me, I think these shows—I’m thinking about larger things. You know, I think these shows are prompting me to think about history. In terms of being a gay man, right?

Danez Smith: Hm.

Joseph Legaspi: I’m also reading Rebecca Makkai’s novel, The Great Believers, and it’s set in the 1980s, during the AIDS epidemic. I’m 47. My husband is 52. So we lived through that segment in gay history, where you know, this epidemic was looming. I, fortunately, was actually—I didn’t come out until I was 30. So in a way, I was kind of quote-unquote spared of that. But, I’m also learning a lot about this history of queerness now, through these shows, and through these pieces of literature. You know, there was also an amazing production of Angels in America last fall. It was really very moving to me. So, just to think about the generations that we’ve lost. You know? But I’m also thinking about the new generation of openness, when it comes to queer people and queer acceptance. I mean, we still have a long way to go, of course. But I’m also very much heartened as to, you know, how queerness has arrived at a certain level.

Franny Choi: Yeah. I mean, that’s also fascinating to think about learning through media about a history that you might have lived through, I mean, even if one was separated from it. But like, I don’t know, that’s interesting how film and other kinds of media let your learn the history of your own life, in some way.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah, yeah. What’s so interesting about it, too, is that, you know, why is it happening now? In the last three or four years. There’s just this influx, and I think it’s important for us to kind of revisit those moments in history that back then were ignored and forgotten, but it’s kind of resurfaced now.

Franny Choi: Mm-hmm.

Danez Smith: And maybe we are just getting to a point where we have enough distance from it to remember it, try to restructure it. But also because, you know, queerness is so weird because it’s this community that you’re not born into, but rather, figure yourself out into.

Franny Choi: Right, right. Yeah.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah!

Danez Smith: So there are no necessarily like, “I grew up in a gay household, I don’t know what the fuck that’s about.”

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Right, right.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Like, “This is a gay house, we have values here!” No, it’s just like, you figure that out later. You figure that out at 15, you figure that out trying to find your community. You figure it out at 30 when you find your folks.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah!

Franny Choi: Suddenly you’re 30 and living in Northampton, Massachusetts and you’ve bought Chacos and you’re listening to acoustic guitar stuff and so you know, now you have a dog. Just spitballing here.

Danez Smith: We get it Franny, you’re very much a lesbian.

Franny Choi: Yes, I am.

(ALL LAUGH)

Franny Choi: But speaking of back then, can we think about the back then of when you and Sarah Gambito founded Kundiman? What did you dream that it could be? What did you envision at that time, and what did you want?

Joseph Legaspi: Well, you know, our creation myth is that it involved seared cubes of meat and a stick.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: (LAUGH)

Franny Choi: As all good ideas do.

Joseph Legaspi: (LAUGHS) But we were actually invited to one of Sarah’s auntie’s in Westchester County. And it was just so great seeing Filipino and Filipino Americans just have this very organic way of interacting with each other. And we were so lonesome. We’d just graduated from these MFA programs, and we didn’t know what to do. You know, like, what is this being a poet, being a poet of color in this American landscape, right? I mean, we were so isolated and we felt so alone. Two years prior to that, I think Cave Canem started. And I knew a couple individuals who went to the retreat. We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel here.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Mm.

Joseph Legaspi: We knew that these spaces exist. So we just model ourselves, you know. Again, we’re so indebted to Cave Canem. We were lonely, and we wanted a community. We wanted friends, we wanted to be surrounded by people who look like us, who actually are very much interested in literature and poetry. You know, being an Asian American interested in literature and trying to pursue literature and to be a poet, I mean those are really luxurious, unicorn type of things.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: You know? Like, there are a few of us.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Joseph Legaspi: So we just wanted to gather.

Danez Smith: I’m over here about to cry.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: It’s so beautiful just to hear that, because especially, I’m thinking, you and Sarah were in such a different position than Cornelius and Toi.

Joseph Legaspi: Oh yeah. We were babies.

Danez Smith: Y’all were babies. They were much more senior poets.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah!

Danez Smith: So, to start something so beautiful not out of a quest for power, but just out of a quest for love, and see how love turns into power, right?

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Because I think Kundiman, just like Cave, it is this mark of pride.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: And it is something we walk through the door with that started from love, that I think has turned into capital for all the people.

Joseph Legaspi: Well also, I think, Cornelius and Toi thought about Cave Canem in the isles of Greece, right?

Danez Smith: That’s so boogie.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah!

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: That’s why it’s called Cave Canem. You know, they were like in Greece! You know? I mean, Sarah and I were in fucking like—

Sarah Gambito: (SPEAKS FROM AUDIENCE) Scarsdale.

Joseph Legaspi: What was that?

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Scarsdale.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) Mykonos. Scarsdale.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah. There you have it.

(ALL LAUGH)

Franny Choi: I’m also thinking about what a different time it was then to be an Asian American writer versus now.

Joseph Legaspi: Oh yeah.

Franny Choi: Recently I reread the introduction for Imago, Phil Levine’s introduction, which came out in what?

Joseph Legaspi: 2007.

Franny Choi: 2007, which is not that long ago. But it was different for there to be an Asian American poet making a book at that point. Because there was a line that was like, “You might think that these poems are exotic, but… they might be different from your experience, but actually…”

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah.

Franny Choi: And I was just like, who was allowing people to write the introductions like this. It was just a different time. Well I mean, people are getting away with a lot, still. But, can you talk about how you think that the experience of being an Asian American writer in 2019 feels different from then?

Joseph Legaspi: Oh my god.

Franny Choi: I know, it’s like huge—a big, huge, weird question.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah, it is a huge question, you know. I’m just thinking about last night. Like, I am sitting right next to Arthur Sze. You know what I mean?

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah.

Joseph Legaspi: And Arthur Sze and I are just talking, you know.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: About things. You know?

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: Like, the bar. You know? But I think even then, in 2007—you know, we started Kundiman in 2004, we knew about Arthur Sze, right.

Franny Choi and Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

Joseph Legaspi: Arthur was like, this mythic figure, but we could not even fathom Arthur Sze, just because we were so—I mean, America’s huge!

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) It is.

Joseph Legaspi: And the community’s so small, or we thought it was.

Danez Smith: Mm.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Joseph Legaspi: You know, we didn’t really have access to Arthur and Marilyn, you know. But when we started Kundiman, we needed to have this bravado to actually just write to Marilyn, “We’re doing this crazy thing, we’re gonna have a retreat just for us, for Asian American writers, can you come for free,” right? And Marilyn and Rick Barot and Ishle Yi Park said “Sure, we’ll do it.” So the first several years, Pat Rosal, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, all these people, Lawson Inada, they came out of kindness, out of necessity. And they believed that this thing needs to exist. And I want to believe that they also needed connection, you know?

Danez Smith: Mm.

Franny Choi: Right.

Joseph Legaspi: And I knew we needed—

Danez Smith: Yeah. Our elders need community, too. For sure.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Joseph Legaspi: We needed to connect the generations here.

Franny Choi: Mm.

Joseph Legaspi: What’s so mind-boggling for Sarah and I is that there are actually young Asian American writers now who didn’t know that Kundiman didn’t exist.

Danez Smith: Hm.

Joseph Legaspi: And we’ve been around for like 16 years.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Joseph Legaspi: They came into their artistic lives knowing that, oh, there’s this organization that we can probably access.

Franny Choi: Right. Like, in English class in middle school, they were like, there’s a Kundiman.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Wild!

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah, it’s really intense.

Franny Choi: Will you close us out with one last poem, Joseph?

Joseph Legaspi: Oh yeah, sure. So I’m gonna close with this poem—

Danez Smith: Is this from the new manuscript?

Joseph Legaspi: No, no actually.

Franny Choi: Oh right, we didn’t get to talk about the new book!

Joseph Legaspi: Because it’s not really—

Danez Smith: We’ll have you back next year and we’ll talk.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I’m actually reading this poem because this poem has gotten so much traction. I’ve gotten, almost every week or every other week, I’ve gotten emails about this poem and how people have used it at various weddings.

Franny Choi: I’m gonna cry.

Joseph Legaspi: And that, to me, is the biggest compliment, you know.

Franny Choi: I am a softie.

Joseph Legaspi: So basically this poem—I would say 80 percent of this poem is from my actual vows. From my actual wedding.

Franny Choi: Alright, strap yourselves in, queers.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: (LAUGHS) This is called “Vows (for a gay wedding)”

(READS POEM)

What was unforeseen is now a bird orbiting this field.

What wasn’t a possibility is present in our arms.

It shall be and it begins with you.

Our often-misunderstood kind of love deems dangerous.
How it frightens and confounds and enrages.
How strange, unfamiliar.

Our love carries all those and the contrary.
It is most incandescent.

So, I vow to be brave.
Clear a path through jungles of shame and doubt and fear.
I’m done with silence. I proclaim.

It shall be and it sings from within.

Truly we are enraptured
With Whitmanesque urge and urgency.

I vow to love in all seasons.
When you’re summer, I’m watermelon balled up in a sky-blue bowl.
When I’m autumn, you’re foliage ablaze in New England.
When in winter, I am the tender scarf of warm mercies.
When in spring, you are the bourgeoning buds.

I vow to love you in all places.
High plains, prairies, hills and lowlands.
In our dream-laden bed,
Cradled in the nest
Of your neck.
Deep in the plum.

It shall be and it flows with you.

We’ll leap over the waters and barbaric rooftops.

You embrace my resilient metropolis.
I adore your nourishing wilderness.

I vow to love you in primal ways.
I vow to love you in infinite forms.

In our separateness and composites.
To dust and stars and the ever after.

Intrepid travelers, lovers, and family
We have arrived.

Look. The bird has come home to roost.

* * *

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Danez Smith: Thank you Joseph, so much. I feel emotionally topped.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: I feel like a sub for happiness right now.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Also, I am available for marriage proposals. Anybody out there. I ask for a small dowry of two mangoes and a three-piece.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Yeah. Let’s do this, y’all.

Franny Choi: Oh man.

Danez Smith: How are you, Franny? Do we need a queer check-in right now?

Franny Choi: Yeah, maybe. We might need a queer check-in.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: No, let’s keep the love going and introduce our third guest.

Danez Smith: Who we will marry.

Franny Choi: Who we will all collectively marry. Congratulations, Sarah Gambito.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Sarah Gambito is the author of several poetry books, including Delivered and Matadora, and the recently released Loves You.

Danez Smith: It’s so good.

Franny Choi: Give it up for Sarah Gambito.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

Sarah Gambito: It’s so good to be here. I’m like, still weepy. Thank you to Danez and Franny and Daniel, and thank you, Lawrence, thank you, your amazing team that has made this incredible festival possible.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Sarah Gambito: Okay. So I’ll read you a poem. It’s called “Citizenship.”

(READS POEM)

I’m a pipe cleaner.

A drop of moisture on the big nose.

A pushing landscape, indecipherable.

You speak of a very good sort of Englishness.

That world could stand as a mallet.

A one-body god with penis or not.

I want only to admire the grass. The great locks of trees.

That the idea is enough.

My bringing herbs to

myself

thyself.

My life

hits my ears.

A shredded pinky stream of bass and corrugated paper.

Who is it that actually sees herself?

The heart center of the fragrance

billowing toward its end.

My mother crammed in her room next to her mother.

She was obedient.

She was the method

and voted for the wrong person.

Our sore throats were our throats.

We said to ourselves in our clay structures

we are the

motherboards.

We’ll pull the blue ox back into our barn

where the three kings still kneel.

We cleaned the stable.

We pushed the brush over the beautiful animals.

* * *

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Danez Smith: So we’re gonna start with the same question that we do every time. What were your taxes like?

(ALL LAUGH)

Danez Smith: I wouldn’t ask that question, no, what’s moving you?

Sarah Gambito: You know, okay, I’m still trying to put this together, which is why I waited until the last minute to fill out the questionnaire. Because I’m actually absconding right now from a yoga teacher training. I left it to come here.

Franny Choi: Nice.

Sarah Gambito: So I’m with all these people who are really jocky, and I’m like, not at all.

Franny Choi: At the yoga training.

Sarah Gambito: Yeah, yeah. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: I was looking around being like, really?

Sarah Gambito: Like, “I’m a tri-athlete, and I’ve been dancing since I was two.” And I’m like, “I love the couch.”

(ALL LAUGH)

Sarah Gambito: And mostly am there. You know, that’s my address.

(ALL LAUGH)

Sarah Gambito: But we had this section on beginning Sanskrit and mantras, and Sanskrit as a vibrational language. And the power, which is like poetry, right, of how you allow words to permeate you. And that you feel it. The skeletal system, the muscles, that the body, the mind, the imagination, that these things are interknit, and you actually can’t pull them away from each other.

Danez Smith: Hm.

Franny Choi: Mm.

Sarah Gambito: So I’m really interested in this confluence of the soul, the body, movement. People are like, “I didn’t know you were good at yoga.” (LAUGHS) But I want to learn. You know what I mean? And I think that’s the seed of it.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Yeah. Are you finding the interest in that confluence that you’re talking about showing up in the writing that you’re doing lately?

Sarah Gambito: I see it mostly with teaching.

Danez Smith: Hm.

Franny Choi: In what way?

Sarah Gambito: I started doing this—which is why maybe I wanted to do the training in the first place—but last semester, I would say, “How about let’s just breathe.” And they were like, “That’s the first time I breathed the whole day today!”

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Sarah Gambito: And I was like, “Oh!” And we were learning these different modes of breathing, which is really lovely. There’s abdominal breathing, there’s clavicular breathing. Like shallow breathing is up here. And what they were saying is that if your muscles are so tense, and if you’re on high alert all the time, some people spend most of their lives just breathing up here.

Danez Smith: Mm.

Sarah Gambito: And I was like, oh my god, I think that was my 20s.

(ALL LAUGH)

Sarah Gambito: Maybe into the 30s too. So just that kind of reacquaintance with this sort of palace of the body that we can’t escape.

Danez Smith: Hm.

Franny Choi: Yeah.

Danez Smith: Beautiful. Speaking of palaces, you built one with Joseph. It’s wonderful to see Cathy coming on as the new ED, but we were also wondering, what is it like for you to now be passing on this gorgeous thing that you’ve built, on to somebody else, to see the next generation taking it on?

Sarah Gambito: Yeah, yeah. Joseph and Cathy and I, we’ve talked over many years. For those of you who are thinking about nonprofits, I think this might be good for you as well. He was like, “The number one reason why nonprofits fail is founder’s syndrome.” I love Kundiman so much, I can’t let that happen, and Joseph and I can’t let that happen. So I think part of being a leader is bringing up other leaders. It can’t just be about you. You have to understand how it has a life and a breath of its own. And to find guardians and people with imagination that are aligned with you. And we were just really lucky that we’re able to work with Cathy, with Dan, with Kyle, with our amazing group of interns. I think because we were able to find them, it made it easier to let go and to also bring up leadership together.

Danez Smith: Amen. Beautiful.

Franny Choi: I’m struck by how much care there is in what you just said. It’s a very like, “if you love something let it go,” right—

Sarah Gambito: Yeah.

Franny Choi: But I think an ethics of care has always been at the center of Kundiman. Can you talk a little bit about how care functions in that space and in the work that you make?

Sarah Gambito: Yeah! I mean, Tim Liu and I had lunch earlier today, and we were talking about—I mean, Joseph and I were lonely in New York, and I don’t know about you guys, but I would go to these readings, and you stand by the table and there’s like Vanilla Wafers—

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: They got Vanilla Wafers at readings in New York?

(ALL LAUGH)

Sarah Gambito: The half-opened brie cheese, and you’re standing there like—

Danez Smith: Y’all have brie cheese at readings in New York? What the fuck!

Sarah Gambito: (LAUGHS) I was like, I don’t know how to be here or do this.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)
 

Sarah Gambito: I just didn’t. So, in terms of care, in New York, workshops abound. That’s not new. But what we wanted was a space where you can really let your guard down. And that’s rare. That’s magical when you can find that. And people accept that and take that up also. Because it’s collaborative. Care, and also fun.

Danez Smith: Hm.

Sarah Gambito: It’s just so tiresome to be in these literary circles where everything is so serious. I tell this story—we did this thing called Poetry Clinic. I think we did it the very first two retreats. I was like, what is this gonna be like? It’s like when you’re in a clinic, and you’re like, who’s next? And then you bring your poem. I even bought these white coats.

(ALL LAUGH)

Sarah Gambito: And we brought them to Charlottesville, and then I was like, I can’t actually put them on. I bought them, though.

(ALL LAUGH)

Sarah Gambito: I bought them, though. That whole just, let’s be this thing, let’s do this thing, and let’s have fun doing it.

Danez Smith: Let’s live our parents’ failed dreams.

(ALL LAUGH)

Danez Smith: Before we became artists. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Like, “Hello, yes, I’m a doctor of thought and poetry.”

Sarah Gambito: That’s right, that’s right.

Danez Smith: Of the heart.

(ALL LAUGH)

Franny Choi: Not literally. Because you have to go to school for that.

Danez Smith: I also have a care-related question, if I may. You know, we were reading through the pre-interview thing that we asked you to fill out, and I feel like I knew, but I was like, oh, Sarah really wants us to love. From yoga, to building Kundiman, right, and even the book Loves You, which is an amazing collection. Congratulations on that stunning piece of work. But even the first poem in the book, right, it opens up with a recipe that tells us to invite people over to our houses, and to bring them into our spaces. And I was just like, oh, every step of the way, I feel like you’re pointing us towards taking care of each other. And I’m wondering, when it’s all said and done, right, in the scary way, but also the beautiful way, what do you want people to say? Like, Sarah Gambito taught me this about love. X about love.

Sarah Gambito: Oh god. That you can trust it. That you can fall back into its arms.

Danez Smith: That’s it. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Thank you so much, Sarah. Will you read us one more poem?

Sarah Gambito: Yes.

Danez Smith: Oh and then we’re gonna play some games.

Franny Choi: Oh yes, then we’re gonna play games.

Sarah Gambito: I’m from Virginia, and I went to UVA, and when all that shit happened in Charlottesville, that screwed me up. I was like, how dare you come to my town. So this is a poem called “Charlottesville Curriculum.”

(READS POEM)

I am afraid of your transcendental death.

When people say think of a man. I think of a brown man.

Sometimes the earth grows khella because she can feel our suffering.

Yooooooing beneath Costco tikis.

When people say think of a man. I think of a white man.

I am meant to hold you in your oblique pain, your map-driven pain.

Yooooooing beneath Costco tikis.

I was drunk holding my teeth in like students.

I am meant to hold you in your oblique pain, your map-driven pain.

You die like an actor.

I was drunk holding my teeth in like students.

My body was a brown dog I shoved back into the water.

You die like an actor.

I beseeched but couldn’t stay out of the first person.

My body was a brown dog I shoved back into the water.

Hold me, hold me, hold me, holdmeholdmeholdme.

I beseeched but couldn’t stay out of the first person.

Where does it hurt, we say.

Hold me, hold me, hold me, holdmeholdmeholdme.

I am afraid of your transcendental death.

* * *

Danez Smith: Whew!

Franny Choi: Sarah Gambito, everyone.

Sarah Gambito: Thank you.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Danez Smith: C’mon pantoums! Alright, and we’re gonna invite all of our guests back to the stage. So please welcome Joseph and Cathy as they make their way back. I feel like we’re like a retired Backstreet Boys.

(ALL LAUGH)

Danez Smith: Can’t dance anymore so we just sit in chairs and hang out.

(ALL LAUGH)

Danez Smith: (SINGS) Quit playing games with my heart.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Speaking of playing games, we’re gonna play a version of the game that we play on every episode of VS, This vs. That. We’re gonna go down the line and give you several scenarios. We’ll discuss it and then take an audience poll at the end via clapping, and figure out who won each battle. So, the first up, I think we have slides for these.

Danez Smith: Oh yes, yes.

Franny Choi: Which is worse—which would you rather be, stuck in an Uber with Kenneth Goldsmith, or stuck in an Uber with Michael Derrick Hudson.

Danez Smith: Yes. If you write fiction, then let me tell you, Kenneth Goldsmith sucks. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: And maybe a highlight of his suckiness was reading as a poem the autopsy of Michael Brown, ending with a concentration on the penis.

Franny Choi: At our alma mater, Brown University.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah, Brown University.

Franny Choi: Hey, shout-out to Brown.

Danez Smith: And, famous Asian American poet, Michael Derrick Hudson, is a white man who pretended to be an Asian woman.

Franny Choi: Named Yi-Fen Chou.

Danez Smith: Or used the name of an Asian woman in order to get published with some pizzy poems. So, who are you stuck in an Uber with, the man who capitalized your death, or the man who will screw your name after you’re dead?

Franny Choi: Mm-hmm.

(BELL RINGS)

Joseph Legaspi: So who would you rather be stuck with?

Franny Choi: Yeah, in an Uber ride.

Joseph Legaspi: To do them harm? (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: What happens in the Uber is up to you.

Franny Choi: Right, right. Yeah, yeah.

Danez Smith: Silence, argument, love, murder, whatever.

Cathy Linh Che: I feel like I would like to have a chat with Michael Derrick Hudson, because, my own friends were in that issue of the Best American Poetry, and I would call them on the phone and sort of have them talk to him.

Franny Choi: Ohhh, okay. Community accountability, amazing.

Cathy Linh Che: Shout-out, Jane Wong.

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah. So more accountability process potential with Michael Derrick Hudson.

Danez Smith: Mm-hmm.

Franny Choi: Okay.

Joseph Legaspi: I would not be in a car with Kenneth Goldsmith.

Sarah Gambito: Yeah. I don’t want to be in a car with Kenneth.

(ALL LAUGH)

Sarah Gambito: You know how you meet somebody at a party that’s annoying, and you’re like, “Remember that person?” and you’re like, “Who?” He just like—he’s trifling. Like I actually forgot who that was.

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Sarah Gambito: So I think I would just be like, you don’t register for me.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Sarah Gambito: So yeah, both of them, no, but if I had to, it would be this non-entity.

(ALL LAUGH)

Franny Choi: Yeah. Alright, audience, what do you think? Make some noise if you want to be—no, let’s phrase it the other way. Make some noise if you would hate more to be stuck in an Uber with Kenneth Goldsmith.

(FAINT APPLAUSE)

Danez Smith: Wait, I’m confused. Clap if you’re riding with Kenneth Goldsmith.

Franny Choi: If you’d rather ride with Kenneth Goldsmith.

(SILENCE)

(ALL LAUGH)

Franny Choi: Wow, okay.

Danez Smith: And clap if you would rather be in the car with Michael Derrick Hudson.

(FAINT APPLAUSE)

Franny Choi: Oh, I know, it’s just so sad all the way around. But yeah, for me I think it’s like, who would you rather go like, na-na-na-na for 30 minutes with.

Danez Smith: Me, I’d rather talk to Kenny G. about some things.

Franny Choi: I want to talk to Michael Derrick Hudson and be like, “Boo! Booooo” for like 30 minutes. You know? Like, flash my tits or something. Do something weird. Freak him out.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Cool. So the lesson we learned is, carpool. Okay. So next question, which is worse, or I guess which one would you rather be stuck at, is I guess the way we’re gonna ask this question. Karaoke from hell, or a poetry reading from hell. Now, let’s talk about what the worst karaoke situation would be.

Franny Choi: So yeah, poetry reading from hell, we’ve all been at the poetry reading from hell. Everybody goes way over time, there’s no good audio, the poems are bad.

Danez Smith: Yeah. The seats have the guardrail so you can’t actually sit the fuck down.

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The bathroom is behind the reader, so you have to like, announce when you have to pee.

Danez Smith: Michael Derrick Hudson is there. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Michael Derrick Hudson is there. It’s a terrible poetry reading. You’re stuck at it. You have to wait until it’s over because you’re giving somebody a ride. What’s the karaoke room from hell?

Cathy Linh Che: There’s no such thing.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah, there aren’t any! (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: No such thing. Bad karaoke is better karaoke in my mind. Yes!

Danez Smith: Okay. Then let’s say it’s karaoke with only your least favorite uncles.

Franny Choi: The worst uncles.

Danez Smith: Yeah, like Uncle Rob.

Franny Choi: There’s fluorescent lights. Bright fluorescent lights.

Cathy Linh Che: Have you not been to K-Town? (LAUGHS) It’s all fluorescent lights, it’s amazing.

Franny Choi: The only food available are those Nature Valley granola bars, so your mouth gets dry.

Cathy Linh Che: No!

Franny Choi: No water.

Danez Smith: No water, just Nature Valley and spit. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Everyone’s drunk except for you, you know. Karaoke from hell or poetry reading from hell.

(BELL RINGS)

Cathy Linh Che: Yeah, I’d go with poetry reading. I’ve been there.

Sarah Gambito: Poetry reading.

Cathy Linh Che: It’s like, how dare you maim this art form that I so love?

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS) Karaoke?

Cathy Linh Che: No, poetry.

Danez Smith: Oh. (LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: You can’t maim karaoke.

Franny Choi: I love that Cathy Linh Che just doesn’t believe that bad karaoke exists, as a category. (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: It doesn’t exist.

Joseph Legaspi: Well it’s part of the definition of karaoke, the maiming.

Cathy Linh Che: Yeah!

Franny Choi: Right, I guess tone-deaf singing is part of the charm.

Danez Smith: Karaoke loosely translates—to what the fuck was that?

Joseph Legaspi: Make sure to be here on Saturday.

Sarah Gambito: I like watching the short films, too. The film art.

Franny Choi: Yeah, right, right.

Cathy Linh Che: Also, I will say—so this might be considered karaoke from hell. We have a fellow Eugenia Leigh who used to work in LA’s K-Town, and Adam Levine would come in.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Oh my god.

Cathy Linh Che: And sing to Maroon 5 songs the whole time, just line up Maroon 5 songs and sing to his own songs.

Danez Smith: What!

Cathy Linh Che: That might be karaoke from hell, but I would still fucking watch it.

Danez Smith: Wait, wait.

Franny Choi: Wait, what!

Danez Smith: Adam Levine just kinda shows up to like, practice? (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: To show off, yes. He’s like, “Heyy!”

Sarah Gambito: I would watch it too.

Cathy Linh Che: Yeah.

Franny Choi: Right, but—

Danez Smith: I might actually like Adam Levine now. (LAUGHS)

Cathy Linh Che: No!

Danez Smith: That might’ve did it.

Cathy Linh Che: That’s not the purpose of that story.

Franny Choi: Alright, audience, which is worse? If you think that karaoke from hell is the worse option, make some noise.

(FAINT CLAPS)

Franny Choi: Okay, make some noise if you think the poetry reading from hell is the actual hell.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Cathy Linh Che: Yes!

Franny Choi: So let this be a lesson to all of us that we stick to our time. When it says seven minutes, it’s actually seven minutes. This was all actually a lesson for you. Alright. For our final This vs. That, we have a fight that’s going down.

Joseph Legaspi: Oh!

Franny Choi: Who would win in a fight.

Cathy Linh Che: That’s easy.

Joseph Legaspi: Too easy.

Franny Choi: One Marilyn Chin or five Marie Kondos. (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Who would win in a fight?

(BELL RINGS)

Cathy Linh Che: Is the fight against like, my parents as hoarders, or is the fight against—

Franny Choi: No, I think they’re punching each other.

Cathy Linh Che: Oh.

Franny Choi: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean?

Cathy Linh Che: It’s obviously Marilyn Chin.

Sarah Gambito: Marilyn Chin, Marilyn Chin.

Joseph Legaspi: Yeah. Marilyn Chin kicks everyone’s asses.

Danez Smith: But there’s five Marie Kondos.

Franny Choi: Five Marie Kondos!

Danez Smith: Five. And she loves mess.

Franny Choi: She does love mess.

Danez Smith: She loves mess, you know.

Sarah Gambito: She doesn’t stand a chance.

Danez Smith: She’s like, punching your face and like, “Does this bring you joy?” You know?

(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: “Does this spark happiness, bitch?” (LAUGHS)

Sarah Gambito: She doesn’t stand a chance and there’s a force field.

Cathy Linh Che: In the video game, Marilyn Chin has all of the power and Marie Kondo might have—

Sarah Gambito: Organization.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Joseph Legaspi: A Swiffer.

Cathy Linh Che: A Swiffer.

(ALL LAUGH)

Franny Choi: Alright, okay. Audience, make some noise if you think that a single Marilyn Chin is winning this fight.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AND CHEERS)

Danez Smith: That’s it!

Franny Choi: I mean, she’s kind of a badass.

Danez Smith: That’s it. That’s it.

Franny Choi: Can we just make some noise for Marie Kondo in general?

Danez Smith: Woo!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Danez Smith: Thank you, Marie Kondo, for your work. (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Thank you all so much for gracing us with your presence for this episode of VS live at the Asian American Literature Festival. One more round of applause for all of our readers today.

Danez Smith: Thank you to the Asian American Literature Festival, the Smithsonian, the Poetry Foundation, everybody who put this thing on and sponsored it, and letting us come hang out with all these cool poets. Thank you to Daniel Kisslinger, our producer, thank you to Ydalmi Noriega, our—

Franny Choi: Our shepherd.

Danez Smith: Shepherd, yeah!

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS) Our hero. Thank you to the Eaton DC. Make some noise for the Eaton DC. This place is cool.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

Danez Smith: Maybe for lawsuits’ sake, no white poets were harmed in the making of this podcast.

Franny Choi: (LAUGHS)

Danez Smith: Only shaded. And if you see Marilyn Chin on the street, approach with caution and respect, or run! (LAUGHS)

Franny Choi: Thank you so much, everybody. Have an amazing time at this festival.

Sarah Gambito: Thank you.

Joseph Legaspi: Thank you.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDS)

(MUSIC PLAYS)