Sunny’s Review on Issue 3

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Issue 3 of Kartika, our summer edition, cannot be passed over. I can’t believe the talent I see in our small but steady lit journal. After reading this issue at least twice now, I have much to say about every piece.

Here’s a sampling of my impressions:

Ruchika Tomar’s sensory piece “Letters to a Panther,” which detailed a drive through California, took me from Los Angeles to San Francisco and all the while impressed me with stellar figurative language. The line “California is a marshmallow, essential, but unnecessary. California is soft. Tasty. It melts on a cedar twig under extreme heat.” in particular made me envy her talent. “Berkeley that smells like Nam Champa incense and books and sandwiches with alfalfa sprouts and everything that is right with the world.” Yes. That is the Berkeley I know, too.

What I love the most about Kelly Luce’s piece “Cram Island” is the voice. What a distinct and memorable voice Luce can craft! From reading her fiction in this journal, all I have left to say about her is she better come out with a novel soon. This is the kind of prose that literary awards were made for. Needless to say, the editors were gushing over “Cram Island.”

Kevin Wu can set a mood like nobody’s business. Case in point: “The Day.” The opening describes a metaphorical fly “profoundly interested in mud, in the darkness of a beginning.” His tight, perfect prose is consistent to the end. After setting down his piece, I still couldn’t get out of my head that line in the last paragraph, “At first I didn’t see the fly because my heart is without it, and yet it wants to be like me, it wants to remain, and be real.” What a way to fade in and fade out of a descriptive narrative.

I’m grateful that Dina Omar thought of us when submitting “Clogged Gutters” because receiving that piece in my inbox made my day. Is it Asian American creative writing? Yes. West Asia. And Dina’s a Palestinian-American poet/writer. She had me the moment I read “Yusif Imran thinks / people who drive planes into buildings / should get real jobs.” Though short and concise, after reading “Clogged Gutters,” I felt like I read a novel-length story and got a glimpse into a stranger’s lifetime.

Michelle Peñaloza’s poem “Origin” addresses identity in a way I’ve never encountered before. It begins: “at first it was a game / then an annoyance / then a threat / and then a postmodern dilemma / “Where?” / they want to know” and then a chain of evocative verses, from “a god that spewed fire / and pelted me with curtains of rain” and “a land where people found / salvation in underwater caves / and hope in two person canoes” to “the blood / of four continents / mingled and mixed/ in one.” My heart thumped faster, accelerating on wonder and awe, after I read Peñaloza’s “Origin.”

All the editors were enamored with Jason Koo’s “There Is No There, There.” While I admired the tone and execution of the entire piece, this line convinced me to give an unequivocal yes: “Suddenly the selfishness / of children seems the greatest / crime against humanity, and you want to call / your parents to thank them but know / you won’t, your internal irony / already kicking in[.]” I’ve read Koo’s piece at least five times now. It’s best read slowly, with eyes closed for a moment of thought after each stanza.

Few poems I’ve read exemplify the notion of “Asian American poetry” as Rohan Mulgaonkar’s “The Return.” I wanted to quote a few of my favorite lines here, but I couldn’t pick. Every word Mulgaonkar picked needed to be there. Experience: “Even now / cobbled alleyways are a / porridge of hot baked tar, sweat, and / sewage linked by wooden crates, / half-rotted interiors brimming over / with browned apples and pears—the spotted orphan children / of commerce—swarmed by listless flies, / lounging after a surfeit of sweet.” And “[a]s the day recedes / into the dreamy hours / of twilight, cafés crowd with / oil-black faces smoking hookah / and sipping Turkish coffee as though / the word ‘languor’ were malediction[.]” Powerful. As long as Mulgaonkar continues writing and publishing his poetry, he’s headed to big places.

Hauquan Chau’s essay “Confessions of A Man Impersonating John” made me smile. It’s a piece I know many of our readers will relate to and enjoy. Chau is bar none a master at the non-fiction form. A fiction editor once told me she could see into a person’s heart by reading that person’s short story submission. I understood what she meant after reading Chau’s essay. I could really see heart in “Confessions.”

Kartika’s essay sections, both past and the present Issue 3, have had phenomenal Filipino/Filipina representation. Talusan’s piece is worth noting, however. If it were possible, I’d want to hug this essay. It’s feel-good and showcases a little bit of everything, from personal experience and addressing identity issues to history, sociopolitical commentary, and the seamless cohesion of it all in solid prose. In slating Issue 3, none of us could pass up “The Myth of Filipino Magnetism.”

Lewis Leong’s “Light in Absolute Darkness” is a remarkable gem of a piece. This essay was the final product of Leong’s research on Father John Francis Toan, who had been sent to a Communist labor camp after the 1975 fall of Saigon. “Light in Absolute Darkness” follows Father Francis’ escape out of Vietnam and his continued missionary work after arriving in the United States. I was heading to bed when I received Leong’s submission and decided to stay up and read it. Once I finished, thoughts and images of Father Francis’ many trials and tribulations lingered in my head. Leong has produced a piece that will have a lasting impact on all who take the time to read it.

In this issue, we have a literary review of Adrian Tomine, written by Spencer Dew. Dew’s fiction works in various literary journals I read captured my attention. I wrote to him about submitting his work to Kartika and what came was a proposal for a piece on Tomine. “Five Frames for Adrian Tomine” is to date the best critique of Tomine I’ve read. I’m honored to say that Kartika published it. Also, Spencer Dew recently published a collection of short stories, Songs of Insurgency (Vagabond Press 2008). The book has only been out since March of this year and already it’s garnered rave reviews.

Finally, I can’t get over our luck for interviewing Yiyun Li. I read her collection of short stories A Thousand Years of Good Prayers as a law student. Thanks to her stories, I survived the wasteland of higher education (also known as law school) because of writers like Li, who is a master at whisking readers away to another place to meet characters so well-crafted that we dream about them. Thus, when Christine told me we were interviewing Yiyun Li for Issue 3, I leaped for joy. What’s more, the interview transcript will serve as an invaluable resource to young writers, who are always hording information and writing tips on their favorite authors, like Yiyun Li.

Thanks, all!

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