Naming the No-Name Woman

"Naming The No-Name Woman" by Jasmine An is the winner of the Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize and was chosen by contest judge, Keetje Kuipers.

Praise for "Naming The No-Name Woman"

"Fiercely sexual and frank, the speaker in "Naming The No-Name Woman" mythologizes her experiences as a Chinese-American woman, never flinching from the various overlapping identities she encounters. I am reminded of the fearlessness of Kimiko Hahn's work, and am stirred anew by Jasmine An's resistance to any kind of shame that identity-chosen and unchosen-is eager to place on us. The speaker's foil in these poems is the actress Wong Liu Tsong (Anna May Wong), "the open secret, the uninvited guest, the hand resting / in the small of my back." Jasmine An does not so much make use of Wong in an effort to compare and contrast, but instead, she joins with her, blending voices and giving new and roaring life to that long and still unfolding story of race, gender, and sexuality in our country." - Keetje Kuipers

In clear and luxurious language, Jasmine An navigates the slippery worlds of identity politics, botany, and desire-and pulls us toward an elegant horizon. I'm grateful for such a sumptuous and (not-so) safe passage of fine poems and the fragrant world that she's created in such a small space, one where ..".even the saplings wear crabs as crowns." - Aimee Nezhukumatathil

The poems in Jasmine An's transformative, erotic collection teeter on the impossible border between consuming and rebuffing, naming and not naming the enigmatic presence of Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong. Likewise, An's formal choices tread a wavering line between poetry and prose, just as the poems draw as much from theory as memory and feeling. "I am afraid of writing myself into a story that isn't meant for my survival," An writes, and yet she does, allowing herself to be exquisitely haunted by Wong's performance of Asian-American femaleness, her beauty and her precarious legacy. In the process, An's speaker incorporates the shadow. She swallows. - Diane Seuss