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by Damon Potter (Author), Truong Tran (Author)
Two books bound together that interrogate race--one from the perspective of a man of color, and the other from the perspective of a white man.
This book brings together different perspectives under two titles, considering the lives and experiences of two friends, one Vietnamese American and one white. Looking And Seeing is a poetic work of yearning, regret, and righteous indignation. In Truong Tran's poetry, what is said and what is written reveal our complexities. Composed as an investigation of his own being and body as a brown person moving through white spaces, this collection moves alongside Tran's friend and collaborator Damon Potter. Seeing and Looking offers a record of Potter's perspective as a white man examining who he is and wants to be and the complications of trying to be good while also benefiting from histories of oppression. Potter considers death--both his own future death and the deaths of his friends--while grappling with how to witness horrors, wonders, and his self.Author Biography
Damon Potter is coauthor of 100 Words with Truong Tran. He works as a gardener in San Francisco. Truong Tran is a writer, visual artist, and teacher at Mills College, Oakland. Tran was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and he currently lives in San Francisco. He is the author of seven previous collections of poetry: The Book of Perceptions; Placing the Accents; Dust and Conscience; Within The Margins; Four Letter Words; 100 Words, coauthored with Damon Potter; and Book of The Other, recipient of the American Book Award and CLMP's Firecracker Award for Poetry. He is also the author of one children's book, Going Home Coming Home, and an artist monograph, I Meant To Say Please Pass the Sugar. His poems have been translated into Spanish, French, and Dutch.
