JUSTIN WOO [Guest Poet]

Dear fellow word lovers,

I met this amazing poet at Honoring Brandon Lacy Campos: A Night of  Poetry and Story, an event I helped to organize.   Below is a piece he wrote and read at the event.  I was immediately swooned by his cunning eye for detail and intimate way of describing a moment.  He agreed to have his piece published here.  Enjoy!

-Cris

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We met through a friend,
and I was immediately taken in.
Beautiful, with a whiskey shot smile,
all deep warmth.

After a few hours
of dicussing racial politics together,
I asked him
what his ethnicity was
and he laughed.

Before I could stammer out
an apology, he said,
that’s okay,
said he got that
all the time
then went on to describe
the beautiful branching roots
of his heritage
(black, white, Afro-Boricua, Ojibwe)
over spicy dumplings in Chinatown.

Sad stories always have this cute little beginning
that you thought nothing of
at the time, and looking back
you wish you had carved your names
into concrete somewhere,
so this moment had a memorial

Brandon invited my girlfriend and I
to his house to play
Axis and Allies.
He played Japan. I played America.
He cooked us spicy pancit.
His dog Mimzy growled at her reflection.
My girlfriend passed out on my lap.
We never finished the game.
Followed each other
on Facebook,
always said
we should hang out again,
never got a chance.

These time-sharpened
remembrances break
into staccato sentences
as I count off the anniversaries of death
until I forget to do so,
and I too fade,
and turn someone else’s
first memory
into a sad story.

Every lost friend is an unfinished game.
A war without armistice,
a barrage of gunfire
locked in still life,
a million soldiers
that never find their way home. 


Justin Woo is a Rutgers graduate, Jersey City resident, and Chinese-American poet, theatre artist, audio engineer, and DJ. He has performed at universities and theatres in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, including the 2007 NYC Fringe Festival and the Tony Award-winning Crossroads Theatre. He has collaboratively created several multidisciplinary spoken word theatre pieces, and is currently working with Dreamweavers Theater Company to co-write “It Would Take Armageddon.” He was also a member of the 2011 J.C. Slam team.

His goal is to encourage positive social and political change through the creation and performance of startling, extraordinary poetry and theatre.

**You can catch Justin Woo THIS weekend Dec 14-16th 2012 at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe for The Spoken Word Almanac Project 2012 


You can also find him here:
facebook.com/justinwooartist
twitter.com/justinwooartist
justinwoo.wordpress.com