#Cynthia Dewi Oka
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lifeinpoetry · 1 year ago
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I am / dust or nothing.
— Cynthia Dewi Oka, from "Diplomacy," A Tinderbox in Three Acts
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lillyli-74 · 1 year ago
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Photography by Rob Olivier
She grew into a forest, she could not be found.
~Cynthia Dewi Oka
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smokefalls · 1 year ago
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We are all beneficiaries of a sun that rises and sets with or without us.
Cynthia Dewi Oka, "Window #033" from A Tinderbox in Three Acts
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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 years ago
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* * * * *
“She grew into a forest, she could not be found.”
— Cynthia Dewi Oka, from “Siege: In Response to the Man Who Asked Me, “Where Is the Courage in Your Poetry?”,” Salvage (via lifeinpoetry)
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Mark Laver, "Untitled"
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weltenwellen · 11 months ago
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Cynthia Dewi Oka, from "First Poem After Parting"
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bread-into-toast · 1 year ago
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Tagged by @ether-blooms
Tag people you'd like to get to know better!
Last song: I Know the End by Phoebe Bridgers (dived back in my pandemic playlist, oop)
Currently watching: Cooking Crush, Last Twilight, Mentopolis
Last movie watched: Hunger (2023), dir. Sitisiri Mongkolsiri
Currently reading: Salvage (2017), Cynthia Dewi Oka; Oceanic (2018), Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Sweet, spicy, or savory: Sweet also. CHOCCY
Current obsession: the latest MTG set, lost caverns of ixalan. Also, poltical ecology
Relationship status: Partnered, open
Last google search: thalmann algorithm
Currently procrastinating on: Schoolwork and editing work :|
Tagging @pocketvikings, @daddy-himbo-92-ov, @prairiefevers, @worldwake, @wheelzyx, @therileydutch, @logicoso
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brandonshimoda · 2 years ago
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THE BOOKS I READ IN 2022, in the order in which I read them (*books I read before, that I was reading again):
Alexandra Chang, Days of Distraction 
Elizabeth Miki Brina, Speak, Okinawa 
Cynthia Dewi Oka, Fire Is Not a Country 
Hanif Abdurraqib, Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest 
*Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings 
Victoria Chang, Dear Memory 
*Etel Adnan, Of Cities & Women (Letters to Fawwaz)
Sun Yung Shin, The Wet Hex 
traci kato-kiriyama, Navigating With(out) Instruments 
Raquel Gutiérrez, Brown Neon
Solmaz Sharif, Customs 
*Etel Adnan, Journey to Mount Tamalpais 
Lucille Clifton, Generations: A Memoir 
Emerson Whitney, Heaven 
Kim Thúy, em, tr. Sheila Fischman 
Angel Dominguez, Desgraciado (the collected letters) 
Janice Lee, Separation Anxiety 
*Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee
*Cathy Park Hong, Translating Mo’um 
Kyoko Hayashi, From Trinity to Trinity, tr. Eiko Otake 
Lao Yang, Pee Poems, tr. Joshua Edwards & Lynn Xu 
Yuri Herrera, A Silent Fury: The El Bordo Mine Fire, tr. Lisa Dillman (
Mai Der Vang, Yellow Rain
Chuang Hua, Crossings 
José Watanabe, Natural History, tr. Michelle Har Kim
Walter Lew, Excerpts from: ∆IKTH 딕테/딕티 DIKTE, for DICTEE (1982) 
*Bhanu Kapil, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers 
Vasily Grossman, An Armenian Sketchbook, tr. Robert & Elizabeth Chandler
Hiromi Kawakami, Parade, tr. Allison Markin Powell 
Lynn Xu, And Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight 
*Etel Adnan, Sitt Marie Rose, tr. Georgina Kleege 
Jennifer Soong, Suede Mantis/Soft Rage 
*James Baldwin, No Name in the Street 
*Hilton Als, The Women
Dot Devota, >She 
V.S. Naipaul, The Return of Eva Perón 
Yasushi Inoue, The Hunting Gun, tr. Sadamichi Yokoo and Sanford Goldstein
Molly Murakami, Tide goes out 
Adrian Tomine, Shortcomings 
Hisham Matar, A Month in Siena 
Leia Penina Wilson, Call the Necromancer 
Gabriel García Márquez, News of a Kidnapping, tr. Edith Grossman 
Amitava Kumar, Bombay-London-New York 
Elizabeth Alexander, The Trayvon Generation 
Ryan Nakano, I Am Minor 
Constance Debré, Love Me Tender, tr. Holly James 
Hilton Als, My Pin-up 
Victoria Chang, The Trees Witness Everything 
Leslie Kitashima-Gray, The Pink Dress: A Story from the Japanese American Internment 
Emmanuel Carrère, Yoga, tr. John Lambert 
Ronald Tanaka, The Shino Suite: Sansei Poetry 
Patricia Y. Ikeda, House of Wood, House of Salt
Soichi Furuta, to breathe 
Kiki Petrosino, Bright 
Sueyeun Juliette Lee, Aerial Concave Without Cloud 
Nanao Sakaki, Real Play
Esmé Weijun Wang, The Collected Schizophrenias 
Francis Naohiko Oka, Poems 
Geraldine Kudaka, Numerous Avalanches at the Point of Intersection 
Steve Fujimura, Sad Asian Music 
Augusto Higa Oshiro, The Enlightenment of Katzuo Nakamatsu, tr. Jennifer Shyue 
Julie Otsuka, The Swimmers 
Salman Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey 
Margo Jefferson, Constructing a Nervous System 
Hua Hsu, Stay True 
Barbara Browning, The Miniaturists 
Kate Zambreno, Drifts 
*Julie Otsuka, When The Emperor Was Divine 
Louise Akers, Elizabeth/The Story of Drone
Wong May, In the Same Light: 200 Poems for Our Century from the Migrants & Exiles of the Tang Dynasty 
Gabrielle Octavia Rucker, Dereliction 
Trung Le Nguyen, The Magic Fish 
Jessica Au, Cold Enough for Snow 
Tongo Eisen-Martin, Blood on the Fog 
Lucas de Lima, Tropical Sacrifice 
*Like a New Sun: New Indigenous Mexican Poetry, ed. Víctor Terán & David Shook 
Billy-Ray Belcourt, A Minor Chorus 
Kazim Ali, Silver Road 
*Sadako Kurihara, When We Say Hiroshima, tr. Richard Minear 
Simone White, or, on being the other woman
*James Baldwin, The Devil Finds Work 
Christina Sharpe, Ordinary Notes 
*Raquel Gutiérrez, Brown Neon 
Marguerite Duras, The Man Sitting in the Corridor 
Gayl Jones, Corregidora 
*Bhanu Kapil, The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers 
*Etel Adnan, Seasons 
Gwendolyn Brooks, to disembark 
Cristina Rivera Garza, The Taiga Syndrome, tr. Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva Kana
Gwendolyn Brooks, In the Mecca 
Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone, tr. Natasha Wimmer
Selva Almada, Dead Girls, tr. Annie McDermott
*Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Dictee
Valerie Hsiung, To Love an Artist
*Theresa Hak  Cha, Exilée and Temps Morts
Dao Strom, We Were Meant To Be a Gentle People
Randa Jarrar, Love Is An Ex-Country
*Dao Strom, Instrument
Osamu Dazai, Early Light, tr. Ralph McCarthy and Donald Keene
Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun, tr. Donald Keene
Rachel Aviv, Strangers To Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us
Mahmoud Darwish, Journal of an Ordinary Grief, tr. Ibrahim Muhawi
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theothermajnoo · 1 year ago
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We are all beneficiaries of a sun that rises and sets with or without us."
—Cynthia Dewi Oka
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the-final-sentence · 3 years ago
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Ghosts light up her life.
Cynthia Dewi Oka, from “Manifest”
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lifeinpoetry · 1 year ago
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I am a girl not a razor blade please let me hold more than onions and windows with no one I can see behind them
— Cynthia Dewi Oka, from "Window #033," A Tinderbox in Three Acts
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jumping-jackalope · 3 years ago
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some of my favorites have been
Natalie Diaz vs. the Lexicon
Jamila Woods vs. The Remedy
Ada Limón vs. Epiphany
Cynthia Dewi Oka vs. Spectacle
George Abraham vs. Returning
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VS
The VS podcast is a bi-weekly series where poets confront the ideas that move them. Hosted by poets Danez Smith and Franny Choi, produced by Daniel Kisslinger, and presented by the Poetry Foundation and Postloudness.
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I am once again recommending this podcast for anyone who enjoys poetry!
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literarycatchall · 7 years ago
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That a potholed street in the middling borough of Collingswood, New Jersey bears the name Atlantic, after an all-consuming body of water. That all-consuming is Atlas’ curse to bear the heavens on his shoulders. That after the fall of the gods, half of the heavens is darkness. That inside the car speeding down the street, I believe I am safe from being halved. That “I” am not a white box, but a body of water. That white is a pattern of boys who expect to live long enough to become men. That some of these boys are whistling by on their bikes, and behind them, clear as a dream, welcome candles in the windows framed by blooms of vervain. That “welcome” means I thought I was not afraid of the dark. Since the jade scrubs of the cancer ward. Since the florescent grid of the factory and the vista of small bones in my father’s collar while I was interpreting for the twenty-something-year-old white citizen,                                 “Tell your dad he can quit or I can fire him.” Grief had already burst its cocoon; it ate him like an army of moths from the inside. That brown men and women kept stitching jackets under the heavens of the machines. Welcome. That a moth is trapped in the car with me – it will die, but I do not want to practice florescence alone. Like a first language bleeding hearts call, speaking truth to power. I don’t know how they don’t know that power doesn’t care. That watching fires go out will become a pattern. That fire is everywhere, and therefore, cheap. That the hole in my foundation is all-consuming and at its bottom a frangipani tree opens its yellow hands. That POLICE ICE is printed in yellow or white on the jacket of the night. That the night walks freely among the ranks of the sun. That a body of water parted once like a red skirt then sealed over the armored horses of Egypt. That Whitney Houston is a bone blasting out the car windows. That tonight, the night after, the night after that, for as long as the distance between god and a pothole, a moth’s flight will spell,                                 “They are coming for you.”
“Redacted from a Know-Your-Rights Training Agenda—,” Cynthia Dewi Oka (2018)
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smokefalls · 1 year ago
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In this sense, reading might be more dangerous than writing. In the flame that sits in the box of human wire, many writers have been lost to the air that is also lost. Not because they wrote, but because someone might read what they wrote. The reader may have choices the writer does not. In this sense, the reader may be the true agent of history.
Cynthia Dewi Oka, "Window #033" from A Tinderbox in Three Acts
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slateblueearthbelow · 7 years ago
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he reaches in the end what he had to begin with: fingertips           on corrupted tissue, cathedral
of octaves in his thinning           breath, tears like small stubborn gods refusing to fall.
excerpt from: Portrait of My Father as a Pianist | Cynthia Dewi Oka
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weltenwellen · 1 year ago
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Cynthia Dewi Oka, from "Redacted from a Know-Your-Rights Training Agenda—"
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litcelebrasian · 7 years ago
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New Releases: December Books by Asian Authors
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The team at Lit CelebrAsian are always bookmarking books before the end of the year. Note: This is just a small sample of releases out in December, so let us know what books you’re excited for! (more…)
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