1,000 Paper Cuts

After some early experiments (e.g., documenting my LA trip with haikus), and with the strong encouragement of an artist & zine-making friend, I decided to make my own book / zine of haikus. I wrote a bunch and gathered the best of them for a book of 32 (well, technically 31 as one poem is a double-haiku). They cover some of my pet themes like wealth accumulation, injustice, state-sanctioned violence, veganism, racism, homophobia, politricks, as well as some life events like a tough workout at the gym.

For most of my poems, my process is to take a theme which might involve a lot of complex reactions/thoughts for me and try to distill that mental essay into the super-brief 5-7-5 syllable format of the haiku. Thus some of them can be quite dense with feeling.

1,000 Paper Cuts was first self-published in 2012 and reprinted (with updated credits/bio) in 2020. It's actually my 2nd haiku project (following Stages of Love), although it is my 1st book.

Available (free for friends/family, 2$ for strangers).

Poems (2009-2012): The Up-Side of Chemo Side Effects, Sibling Savior, Core Training, Interruption, Vitamin D(earest), Chivalry Seesaw, Freedom Through Falsity, Maturity, Nameless Fear, Religious Privilege, How to (haiku), Mother Knows Best, Rhetoric, Our Patriarchy Is Better Than Theirs, (3) Roots of Romance, Lovesick, Abandon if you do, Abandoned if you don't, Straight Weddings Are So Gay, Valentine's Day (is like White History Month), Penpal Romance, 2-Party Blinders, District of C-notes, Presidential Race, G. O.P. S.O.P., Authorized Life-taking, Acceptable Entitlements, Retaliation, The Caring Corporation, one size fits most, Got Smoke?

While I feel most of the poems stand on their own (some with sarcasm, some pure and blunt), I feel some might benefit from clarification:

The Up-Side of Chemo Side Effects: one of my friends had cervical cancer (later made a full recovery, fortunately) and this was one of my first ever haikus (as an adult) which her partner had solicited as a creative way of getting friend support during that awful chemotherapy time.
Mother Knows Best: this was my star vegan poem (& a probe of lacto-ovo vegetarianism); the "reproductive secretions" are eggs (i.e., bird placenta) and milk; why do humans steal them?
Our Patriarchy Is Better Than Theirs: this is about the horrific gender-based infantide & gender-based fetal abortions that have resulted in severe gender imbalances (& related problems) in countries like India & China (due to sons being so highly favored); our patriarchal American Christians are better as at least they don't weed out the girls.
Abandon if you do, Abandoned if you don't: title is a play on "damned if you do, damned if you don't" and poem is about the problem I was seeing with my peers who seemed to abandon most of their friends once they got into a serious relationship (e.g., married). More abstractly, it's an objection about the tendency of people to look to romantic partners to fulfil all their social and emotional needs (a fallacious and isolating practice).
Presidential Race: the title is a pun; the first line is a reference to "The Audacity of Hope;" the second line refers to his frequently stymied attempts to compromise or gain bipartisan support; the third line refers to what many people were saying about color-blindness and how they seemed to (naively) believe that his election meant we were in a "post-racial" society. Before Obama got elected as POTUS, I said many times (to friends/family) that this country wasn't ready for a black president. I was pleasantly surprised when he won in 2012, but not surprised at the nasty, protracted racist backlash that resulted (and continued well into 2020).
Acceptable Entitlements: have you ever heard someone talk about "entitlements" or "entitlement reform" in the context of government? Those manipulative terms, implying "undeserved benefits," are from (white) middle-class or wealthy people talking about social welfare programs like food stamps. This is outrageous & hypocritical given the many "entitlements" that middle-class and wealthy people enjoy, especially the wealth and opportunity accumulation that is passed on from parents to children (regardless of whether children "deserve" it).

Want more poems? See my Pretty Paper Cuts.

Haikus on Paper: Overview

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