SOURCE: Ancheta, Shirley. Review of Danger and Beauty, by Jessica Hagedorn. Amerasia Journal 20, no. 1 (1994): 197-202.

[In the following review, Ancheta observes that the poetry in Danger and Beauty is effectively voice-driven and rooted in musical rhythms, commenting that the collection provides a good introduction to Hagedorn's literary range and achievement.]

Jessica Hagedorn: poet, performance artist, novelist and playwright, has deservedly etched her place in American literature. From her early rhythms in Dangerous Music through the successful novel, Dogeaters, Jessica Hagedorn has entertained us. Danger and Beauty is a collection of poetry and short fiction from her earlier books, including Pet Food and Tropical Apparitions, together with new work. The book is divided into four sections: “The Death of Anna May Wong: Poems, 1968-1972,” “Dangerous Music, 1975,” “Pet Food & Tropical Apparitions, 1981” and “New York Peep Show, 1982-1992.” This volume allows those not familiar with her earlier poems to appreciate her range and achievement.

The book is dedicated to the late poet, Kenneth Rexroth, who encouraged Hagedorn from the time she was a teenager. In her introduction, Hagedorn writes:

His [Rexroth's] flat on Scott Street is the ultimate boho heaven for me. Poetry is respected. Writing is life. I am awed by his library of ten thousand books in all sorts of languages; a kitchen stocked with Japanese goodies; Cubist paintings on the walls; and a living room where you might chance upon James Baldwin, Gary Snyder, or Amiri Baraka (then known as Leroi Jones)—in town for a hot minute. I am grateful even then for my esoteric and streetwise literary education.

In fact, some of the poems in the first section are from the Rexroth-edited anthology, Four Women Poets, published when Hagedorn was twenty-one or twenty-two:

her name is nada
daughter of ainu and t'boli
igorot and sioux
sister to inca and zulu
born from the mouth of a tree
the lullaby of joe loco
and mongo
turquoise eye the lullaby of pattie labelle
and the bluebells
flowers of her smile
the strut the style

(“Canto de Nada”)

It is a poem that celebrates the unity and shared experiences of people of the diaspora, who have crossed and re-crossed the waters and borders. The cadence resists the simple act of poetic word on a dead page; this is a poem to be heard, not read. By the end of the poem, it is the ear, not the eye that has been awakened to the sounds of Jessica's clear style, which influenced other women poets who were to follow:

she is nada all music
she is nothing    all music
she is the punk    all music
the dancing girl    all music
she is nada    nothing
she is the real thing
and in her womb
one could sleep for days

When I think of the earlier poems that make up this collection, such as those in the “Dangerous Music” section, I think of her memorable performances in the Bay Area with her group, The West Coast Gangster Choir. I think of Jessica creating her poems in a Victorian flat in San Francisco, headphones on with Eddie Palmieri's salsa, an IBM typewriter or the simple pen and writing pad—for this was the 70s, before writers even thought about owning a gorgeous computer. Jessica was deep into it: the rhythm, the passion of imagination and memory, and the long haul of the commitment to writing.

Her poems are voice-driven, with the voice leading the words. She knows the power and betrayal of words and through them she plucks a rhythm to sustain the performance poet who must be seen and heard:

there are some people i know
whose beauty
is a crime.
who make you so crazy
you don't know
whether to throw yourself
at them or kill them.
which makes for permanent madness. …
…
stay away
from magic shows.
especially those
involving words.
words are very
tricky things.
everyone knows
words
the most common
instruments of
illusion.
they most likely
be saying them,
breathing poems
so rhythmic
you can't help
but dance.
and once
you start dancing
to words
you might never
stop.

(“Sorcery”)

In the 70s, we learned our fractured histories and Jessica, who emigrated from the Philippines in the 60s, retells the past through the eyes of the mestiza descendant of post-colonial survivors:

… in Manila
the nuns with headdresses
like the wings of doves
piety and sanctity are their names
n their sweat
stale n musky
in the woolen robes they wear
in the heat of a tropical day
hiding breasts n cunts
n beat you into holy submission
with tales of purgatory
n the black saint of lima
martin de porres
n lapu lapu
was just another pagan
who cut off some spaniard's head
n magellan's statue looms instead
like a nightmare in manila
where you dream colors
of the first donald duck movie
you've ever seen
underneath a mosquito net. …

(“Souvenirs”)

These are images of the neocolonial realities of Manila, resurrected by Hollywood and Donald Duck; it is the fake idea of America, forced fed to the Filipino people through the movies.

Pet Food is a launching pad or prelude to her successful novel, Dogeaters, which was nominated in 1990 for the National Book Award. Hagedorn takes more risks here than in her earlier work. The novella takes place in San Francisco, the place of strange, hip city dwellers—where marginally hip people link together momentarily, creating urban ecstasies through the use of cocaine, sex, and hip dialogue. The narrator, a young female poet, goes by the name of George Sand (the pseudonym of Aurore Dudevant, the nineteenth-century European novelist). We discover a Rexroth-like character, Silver Daddy; Auntie Greta, a drag queen with lots of heart; Prince Genji, the ugly villain, and a host of others. In a short piece entitled “Cinderella,” the writer Sands receives a gift:

I was writing in my studio when a coach pulled up in front. … The elegant coach was driven by rodents wearing lace-cuffed velvet jackets and sequined knickers. Satin ribbons were tied to their tails. … There was a knock at my door. A footman entered, wearing an oversized Halloween rat mask, “I have been sent by Cinderella to give you this,” the footman said, handing me a vial of cocaine.

The characters are so insulated in their obsession with cocaine and sex that their hip world of indifference hides a world extracted of meaning and purpose. At times, the reader is cut off from entering the story by the esoteric, hip imaginings of George Sand. The setting is the late 70s early 80s when cocaine use was so common, our “neighbors” used it. While the novella might seem more a celebration of excess, we forgive the character's overindulgence with cocaine because of the edge and newness that the language takes.

Again, it is important to place this experimental piece as groundwork for the very successful Dogeaters, which Jessica calls her “love letter” to her motherland. Dogeaters is a cleverly constructed commentary on American pop culture colliding with troubled, modern Manila during the Marcos dictatorship.

In the last section, Jessica's newest work illuminates the meditations of the traveler, the sojourner, the searcher. As in her other work, she lends us her keen observations on the effects of cultural imperialism and feminism, without overwhelming her narrative power. She allows the urgent voices of memory to find themselves and ask her who she is.

In the landscape of her memory, she's in Zamboanga—in an open market surrounded by grinning women. They call out her name … “I am one of you,” she tells the women. “I am not an American. …” The women mock her with laughter; they don't believe her lies. She's a perpetual foreigner, at home in airports—an exile within, homesick for what she can only imagine.

(“Travels in the Combat Zone”)

How can we celebrate the exile in the cities of New York, San Francisco, and Manila? To take in all of her. To listen to her work, not just a few, but each one, piece by piece.

As a major writer, Jessica Hagedorn has taken on the heavy responsibility of giving the reader a continuous dosage of her work. Her multimedia theater pieces have been presented at New York's Theater, among others and include Holy Food and Mango Tango. She is also a commentator for Crossroads, a syndicated weekly newsmagazine on public radio. Hagedorn edited the newest Asian American fiction anthology, Charlie Chan Is Dead just out from Viking Penguin. Her choices are good ones.

Danger and Beauty is an important work because it gives the reader an inner look to Hagedorn's beginnings. It is the recognition that we have been and continue to be, in the presence of a fine writer, one of our own: Jessica Hagedorn.

Still writing. Still admired.