Thousand Star Hotel

Also by Bao Phi

Sông I Sing

Copyright © 2017 by Bao Phi

Cover photograph and design by Karl Engebretson

Book design by Rachel Holscher

Author photograph © Anna Min

Coffee House Press books are available to the trade through our primary distributor, Consortium Book Sales & Distribution, cbsd.com or (800) 283-3572. For personal orders, catalogs, or other information, write to [email protected].

Coffee House Press is a nonprofit literary publishing house. Support from private foundations, corporate giving programs, government programs, and generous individuals helps make the publication of our books possible. We gratefully acknowledge their support in detail in the back of this book.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Phi, Bao, 1975– author.

Title: Thousand star hotel / Bao Phi.

Description: Minneapolis : Coffee House Press, 2017.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016051821 | ISBN 9781566894708 (paperback) | ISBN 9781566894814 (eBook)

Subjects: | BISAC: POETRY / American / Asian American. | POETRY / Asian.

Classification: LCC PS3566.H467 A6 2017 | DDC 811/.54—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016051821

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Say WHAT?

I.

1. Vocabulary
2. Cookies
3. Shell
4. Go to Where the Love Is
5. Lead
6. The Reveal
7. Kids
8. Want to Want
9. When My Daughter Asks Me to Check and Make Sure Racists Can’t Come In and Kill Us
10. Our Minnesota
11. Peeking through the Back Door of the Commodore
12. Refugees from the Prom Center, the Eighties
13. The Why
14. To Combust
15. Knockoff
16. The Measure
17. Poem for Ahmed Al-Jumaili
18. List of Notable Asian American Poets
19. 467 / 500
20. Frank’s Nursery and Crafts
21. “Allies” Who Think They’re the Chosen Ones
22. Are People of Color as Bad or Who’s Bad or Bad Meaning Good
23. Bad Driver, or Asian American Activists Who Talk about Their Own People Like They Are “Other”
24. It Was Flame
25. Oriental Flavor
26. Token Exceptional Asian in Liberal Multiculturalism
27. At Dinner
28. April 30, 2014
29. Apple-Red Pathfinder
30. No Question
31. Villain/elle: Shimomura Cross Over in the Flat of the Night
32. Rolling through a Four-Way
33. Bu Cua Cá Cọp

II.

1. Future Letter to Daughter Apologizing for When I Caved to Her Request and Brought Her to Barbie’s Dreamhouse at Mall of America
2. Broken Things
3. Document
4. Lights
5. In the Dark
6. Careful What You Wish For
7. Tourist with Daughter
8. Contour
9. Full Contact
10. Geek Triptych
11. Balsa Wood Free Association
12. For All Heartbroken Pizza Delivery Boys
13. Theresa, I Think
14. Incomplete / Abridged
15. Therapist 4
16. Chess Pride, Waverly Style
17. Night of the Living
18. Mouse
19. For Brandon Lacy Campos
20. Well Then
21. In Harbor

III.

1. Ego-Tripping as Self-Defense Mechanism for Refugee Kids Who Got Their Names Clowned On
2. Not a Silverfish
3. Being Asian in America
4. Untitled / Fathers
5. Thousand Star Hotel
6. Refugerequiem

• Acknowledgments