"Once again Yau delivers a spectacularly tantalizing book of poems, recent and relevant to exigencies and booby traps of the times: PC culture, identity politics. A poet's aging body as he's turning 69, and other twilight musings, razor sharp curmudgeonry, meditations on Gumshoes, Piero di Cosimo's Sister, Carole Lombard, the language of Philosophers. All masterfully pulled off with sleight of hand, deft language, gleeful irreverence. As devil's advocate, Yau mercilessly torques all the cliches about being Chinese, in the 'O Pin Yin' series. . . . Each section of this generous book has a particular intensity of shape-shifting personae. Surreal prose poems sit comfortably with 'A Painters' Thought, ' an especially winning section from a poet who has written expertly, profusely on art. Two pieces movingly invoke artist Tom Nozkowski, close friend who passed in 2019. . . . Genghis Chan on Drums arrives on time with a drumming shout-out for the human comedy, a perfect antidote for the enormity of our world's woes. Yet Yau also has the heart of a humble Taoist philosopher as when 'we become our own destiny: military sardines side-by-side sliding together in the dark.'"–Anne Waldman, author of Sanctuary: (Addenda)
