$13.00 (incl s&h in US)

More On Jeffrey Ethan Lee

More On Lori-Nan Engler

More On Toshi Makihara

Scheduled Readings by Lee

Reviews

Lee's Faculty Web Page

"I was inspired to write identity papers
after a young assailant tried to kill me
with a hammer at a subway station in
Brooklyn in August, 1994, while I was
finishing a Ph.D. at NYU.  This poem
comes from the tradition of saying the
hard truth in the most direct way possible
(I think of Etheridge Knight and Ralph
Ellison as models).  But our society has
grown even more vexing.  I have tried
to capture how it is in language that is
lyrical yet visceral, intellectual yet brutal.
I sought to span the language from the
gutter to the research library, and to
speak about race and violence in what is,
above all, an honest account."
-- Jeffrey Ethan Lee

afterwards (the invisible violence)     

I touch the blood on my head and ask,

                    “Where’s the other guy?”

One ambulance attendant sneers

    and glares aloud:

“You deserved it for being here.”

    He actually smirks, and I wonder

is this contempt for my race or just New York jadedness?

                    “Why’s he laughing at me?”

The woman slaps his cinnamon  face

    with her blonde stare

then sees my fretting hand:

    “Stop touching that.  They’ll clean it

at the hospital don’t worry.”

    But her words

don’t know who or what they serve

    like a phone-maze (I mean, menu):

“They’ll clean it at the hospital

    don’t worry.”

My words cut through hers like a noise:

                    “Wait — what’ll this cost me?”

She stops bandaging — she’s vexed:

    “You can refuse treatment if you can’t afford it.” 

Then she thinks: “I don’t know exactly — maybe $400...

   Do you still want it?... You can refuse this ambulance.”

from identity papers
a poem for two voices Hsiao-Ming (Early Morning Light) and Hong (Phoenix) by Jeffrey Ethan Lee

© 2002 Drimala Records