An Ending That Is Different

don’t worry, you don’t have to read this

Book Of The Other - Truong Tran

When I carefully added I wish that this never happened, then it appeared in repeating mosaic bones on a wall and my chest emptied. “Dust and Consciousness”, which I regretted giving to a past love for years until I received the gift again. “Four Letter Words”, I read aloud to myself for a decade, trying to remember poetry built in my breath. Trying to remember something. To remember poetry. 

How it hits me in the same crooks of my tired elbows, my shames, Book of the Other. Truong Tran is done trying to explain. This is poem. Art. What is, what has been. What I have known of him as a teacher, poet, artist, mentor, friend. He tells truth. When the telling of truth is a deep love we may not deserve.

If I tell you about Truong as teacher-poet-artist, does that reduce him from the artist he is? I believe not. The art and writing incandescent through him make those of us who have been in his classroom better. I am eighteen and there is a poetry workshop I can get in my first year. Poetry II. Easy to remember ne of the computer and science buildings on the Amazonian Oakland Campus. 

What Truong says is he remembers me: some dumb teenager in boots slouching over a chair in a course I wasn’t even cleared for. At the time I grew out my hair and wrapped in in a scarf, wanting any gaze away from me, wanting to own something in me. Remembering I was Latinx. Knowing I was queer. It was 2005. It was a long time ago. Truong let me stay - but he never needed to. 

I wrote honest poems. Bonded with good writers because he made us so: Kate in a fur coat with poems to Lil’ Kim, Erin whose kid I’ve met, Cassie who died. We wrote chapbooks at the end of the semester; I’d never known what one was (from Chicago where Carl Sandburg was what I got). I made three for friends for Christmas. I made one for Truong. I know he keeps all of them. 

He makes fun of me to this day. Big boots and lazy stance and the fuck you gonna do with me look? We both knew better.. But he remembered me. And he believed in me. Told me I was a closet formalist. Gave me the works of Bhanu Kapil and Alice Jones and Lisel Mueller and and and. I could’ve left that year and been lucky. 

How do you know a place is not for you? How do you know you’ve made a place and still, you can’t go there? If you read Book of the Other, and you’re not a white, cis, straight person, you might see yourself. If you don’t see yourself, god, I hope the poetry brings you to an understanding. 

The first time I read this book I was barely six months into a job surrounded by white people. One time, walking around the Kezar Stadium with Truong, he told me to not forget understanding the complexities of Latindad. White people did not. But that is who I was. Like I was queer. Him knowing this felt right.

I’m incorrect. The first time I read Book of The Other I was in residency with Truong, in San Francisco, struggling but safe. I am aware of the same incredible poetry he has always given me. I am still furious at the fucking academy. I have applied to MFA programs and when one waitlists me, Truong looks at my email to tell me I’m worth it. Even then. Even then. 

But now the Book is in my hands and I’m surrounded by white people. I am so tired of explaining, and gatekeeping, and trying to show them their world is not how the world is. I am tired of trying to be better as a white Latinx person. I have to do it. I think of polite ways to tell white women they are gatekeeping. I just want them to fucking stop. It cannot be that hard. Please just fucking stop.

I am 20. Truong invites me to a reading. The Living Room Series. I am so nervous. That fall, in his workshop again, because I only want to take poetry with him, Truong who talks kindly to me at my line cook job in the college café, who I sneak Diet Cokes with his incredible cardigans, shit happens. In Chicago there are adolescent suicides. I have to return back to keep track of my sibling. I have written about my life there and Truong gives kindness. When I return, he asks me what is going on, for real. 

The Haight-Noriega bus, of course, falls from the tracks and I walk. Armed with sunflowers, Perrier. When I get to Truong’s, the house is full of poets, graduate students, artists, friends. Truong brings me into the kitchen and I eat goat cheese and sneak wine. I listen to the poets and students and friends. I understand this is it. I sneak out to smoke a cigarette and he rolls his eyes. Men everywhere. This will be one of my favorite nights as a writer, as a young person, as anyone in this life. To be trusted. To be welcomed.

When I was young Truong invited me to write this wish. I can find it now. It still hits. Right there.

What could I tell you as a nothing poet nothing writer no MFA no chapbook no nothing about this book? I don’t know. I tell everyone they should read this book anyway. They should. This book is The Country Between Us, and An Atlas of a Difficult World and Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day and Hand Dance. Which says a lot, because I know Wanda knew Truong, and that book means a lot to me, too. 

I can tell you you should read this book anyway because it’s not about being a teacher in a college or about Karens or about the entrapments of San Francisco. This book is for every immigrant kid, every student who got loved by someone, everyone who got fucked by the academy and MFAs. Even as I envy. Even as I want. But Truong keeps showing up for me and writing. And he tells the truth. Even when it’s so fucking hard. Probably that’s why you should read this book. It’s why I carry Four Letter Words around with me, and why I tell people to buy this one. I mean it.

 I get to do a residency with Truong. Let’s be honest: I’d never get this opportunity otherwise. I have no books. I have no MFA. COVID happened, and I did not get into MFA school. I do not think I will go there. 

In residency each morning we walk the Kezar track near Golden Gate Park. I say something about wanting to make beautiful things. Truong looks at me and says: do not let them take that from you. He makes stew of pork, we watch movies. One day he gives me the draft of this book. I read it all in one go.

I sat in an MFA class and a poetry reading. I remember how fucking good a teacher Truong is: he asks the questions to make better artists and writers. He is kind, incisive, and wants more. He wants questions. Truong asked me where my rodeo poems met Oklahoma gothic met shit Spanish met Chicago grief sonnets. He collects the books because he is all of it, a measured hand. If you read one book of poetry, soon, know this is a book of all of us. I was so young when I saw Truong’s art - butterflies, wishbones, the lights. Each time I still remain struck, somewhere, in my abdomen. It is worth it, that expansion. 

This is, likely, a bad poetry book review. But what can I say? You can’t know what it means to have someone like this in the world or your life. Or you can. If you are a teacher, if you have been a student of a teacher like this, if you have encountered art like this. I wish I could write this. I can hope to. You can read it. Right there.