The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty [Paperback]

Marilyn Chin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 1994

In the 15 years since this book came out, Marilyn Chin has been widely recognized as a consummate poet of the hybrid experience, blending East and West, popular and high culture, personal and political. Praised for its streetwise lyricism, this groundbreaking volume captures a young immigrant woman’s perspective as she encounters the nexus of tradition and commercialism in modern, diverse, and urban California. With this new edition, a modern classic is reintroduced to a new generation of readers.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Chin ( Dwarf Bamboo ) writes with a toughened lyricism that persuades us of the poet's firm life knowledge: she never imputes to experience (or poetry) a false or wishful glamour. Yet Chin refuses to sacrifice her sensibility to cynicism, either, though at times she is willing to acknowledge bitterness, contempt or disappointment as her lot. Instead, she seems to strike a balance between ideal and tatty, pure and spoiled, a balance that is literary and also cultural, considering her own position as one whose father, "a petty thug, / who bought a chain of chopsuey joints / in Piss River, Oregon," named his Asian American daughter after Marilyn Monroe: "And there I was, a wayward pink baby, / named after some tragic white woman / swollen with gin and Nembutal." Chin's habit of stalwart declaration gives the poetry a grounded force, line to line; and her imagery, simple and spare, lifts up those same lines. Directness and indirection can be tools of equal use, she shows, and though not all the poetry calls fully on them both, the work that does is unsentimentally courageous. Illustrations not seen by PW .
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The strongest poems in Chin's second collection (after Dwarf Bamboo , Greenfield, 1987) present an immigrant's view, combining old stories and sensibilities with an American idiom. In "How I Got That Name," the author reveals how she received her name from two cultures. In adopting a new land and renouncing the old, she writes, "My loss is your loss, a dialect here, a memory there." Her verse is full of mysterious images, gifts from another culture, details that enlarge our world: "her lotus feet," "almond grassjelly and guava," "my umbilical cord wrapped in rice-paper." As in every collection, there are weaker entries, especially those set at Crestwood Psychiatric Hospital. Of particular interest is the section entitled "Beijing Spring," in which Chin writes about Tiananmen Square and the Chinese Democratic Movement from a Chinese American perspective. We take away from these poems "the song within the song, the weeping within the willow."-- Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty P.L., Bloomington, Ind.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Milkweed Editions; 1st edition (January 26, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915943875
• ISBN-13: 978-0915943876
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,963,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars this is a great book, June 19, 2004

By 

priscilla sommers - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty (Paperback)

I just taught this book to an undergraduate class of English majors. The students loved the variety, the political conviction and the rich imagery of these poems. "How I Got That Name" is one of Chin's most anthologized pieces: we began with a deep discussion of that piece as autobiographical material. Poem after poem, the students all found beautiful and interesting passages. "A Portrait of the Self As Nation" is a long poem against the gulf war and was written in 1991-- in the reign of the first George Bush. Now, it reads like a great foreboding. The students loved gems such as "Turtle Soup," "The Floral Apron," "The Song of the Sad Guitar." This is a terrific book.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful testament to the long history of Chinese poetry, June 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty (Paperback)

Miss Chin's book of poetry is a work of art in the present day. Crisp images and the rhythms she establishes are a pleasure worth savoring. She manages to place one foot in the modern day American experience while still working and moving in the tradition of Chinese verse. This weaving of cultures is skillfully done. I could almost feel those ancient masters nodding proudly over her accomplishments.