Toasts in the Grove of Proposals
Cathy Park Hong

Lo, brandied man en rabbinical cape
dab rosy musk en goy’s gossamy nape,
y brassy Brahmin papoosed in sari’s saffron sheet
swoon bine faire Waspian en ‘im wingtip feet,
les’ toast to bountiful gene pool,
to intramarry couple breedim beige population!

Lo, union o husky Ontarian y teacup size Tibetan,
wreath en honeysuckle y dew-studded bracken,
lo, union o Cameroon groom kissim ‘e gallic Gamine’s cheek
en miscengnatin’ amour dim seek to reek
les’ toast to bountiful gene pool,
to intramarry couple breedim beige population!

Clap away, Greek chorus o gay sashayim crowd,
clap away, chatty flackmen y pre-nup hackmen,
bine fort, ruby-lined pachyderms who trundle here proud,
bine fort, madders who nag fo proposal enactment,
les’ toast to bountiful gene pool,
to intramarry couple breedim beige population!


Though I hesitate to introduce this poem to a group of ninth or tenth graders because of its linguistic difficult, I think its dialect has a interesting and readable enough meter and rhythm as to make it comprehensible. More importantly, though, I think the dialect enacts the political statement the poem makes out of a private intimacy. It would have been one thing for Hong to simply write about miscegenation. Here, she enacts its consequences: fluidity of language and culture, embodied in a distinct, creolized space. The dialect draws on English, French, Spanish, Latin, and "an amalgamation of over 300" languages, according to Hong, reflecting the increasingly enmeshed global culture. Hong's book, Dance Dance Revolution draws on global conflict to make extreme political statements, whereas the poem here makes it more subtly, as if to suggest that the logical end of globalization is miscegenation of relationships.

If I do include this one, I'll no doubt have to provide loads of footnotes--similar to the handy marginalia Shakespeare editors provide to explicate Elizabethan nonsense. Nevertheless, I think reading the poem aloud makes it easier to understand. Its unique orality should resonate with students invested in the hip-hop/rap tradition, I think, and there are plenty of recordings of Hong reading it on the internet.

The queerness of the poem lies primarily in its proclamation of unusual sexual contact, for its "queering" of the public space. I like the way the speaker celebrates the public intimacy of such diverse combinations. This poem confronts the public space with subversive, non-normative relationships, but does so in the language of a paean or hymn. The apostrophes and choric voice acclaim the individuals pronouncing their love for one another--in a way, Hong consecrates the individuals to a higher purpose than merely their expression of love, she sanctifies the inter-mixture of cultures. The underlying irony, of course, is that the celebration produces a "beige population," a bland repitition for such an exuberant poem. The tension, then, arises out of the forced mixture of a global culture versus the organic amalgamation that arises out of a personal relationship. What will the "beige population" become, a collection of individuals speaking a creolized language of globalization or a featureless mass of beige?

1) How does the invented language make reading this poem difficult? How does reading it aloud make it easier to understand? What might this suggest about the future of language? How does the language reflect the miscegenation of races in the poem?
2) Why might this poem be set in a "grove"? How does the public setting change the reading, if at all? How might having so many interracial couples proposing in public disturb the normative space?
3) The repetition in the poem gives it interesting, hymn-like feel. What are hymns for? Where are they usually sung? Why would having a hymn to interracial coupling in someplace like a grove trouble the significance of hymns to the cultural milieu in which the poem was written?

Engaging with the idea of public and private and how language can problematize the space shows how speakers can actively "queer" a space with their utterance. The formal aspect of the poem, including the hymn-form and meter, further subvert the normative use of hymns in praise of a higher power. Hong queers the form to make a political statement that is made simultaneous to her celebration of interracial, intercultural love. If that's not something that will engage multicultural students in an interesting dialog, I don't know what is.