What’s in a Name?
Christina Miller // Blog Writer
Congratulations to Yi-Fen Chou, whose poem “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve” was selected to be included in the Best American Poetry for 2015. Oh, wait. Yi-Fen Chou isn’t Yi-Fen? Oh ok, it’s just a pseudonym. For who? A white man. Granted, there is an extensive list of writers who have used different names to tweak the standard conventions of the publishing business, some of whom include Mary Ann Evans, Eric Arthur Blair, Samuel Clemens, and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (our very own George Eliot, George Orwell, Mark Twain, and Lewis Carroll).
This is precisely what Yi-Fen Chou, or rather Michael Derrick Hudson, did in order to publish his poem. Hudson explains in his biography for the anthology that his poem was rejected forty times by various publishers under his real name, so he decided to play by different rules. Under his pen name Yi-Fen Chou, the poem was only rejected nine times before being picked up by Prairie Schooner. “The Bees” was then nominated and selected for inclusion in the Best American Poetry anthology for 2015, which came out for sale in September.
Hudson not only fooled the editors of the anthology into thinking that he was a female, Asian poet, but he also fooled Sherman Alexie, the guest editor for Best American Poetry. Alexie has won numerous fiction and short fiction awards, has written twenty-four books, and considers himself an urban Native American. Upon learning of Hudson’s true identity, Alexie acknowledged in a blog post that he was “more amenable” to the poem because he assumed it was written by a Chinese woman. Seeing as the poem is about Western culture and implies very little about Chinese culture, Alexie was intrigued.
Only after Hudson’s poem was selected for inclusion did Alexie discover that Yi-Fen Chou was not in fact Yi-Fen Chou. Alexie says he silently cursed Hudson for his foolery, but then had to devise a plan in dealing with this “colonial theft.” However, taking “The Bees” out of the accepted pile of poems would only make the situation stickier. Rejecting the poem after wanting to publish it would affirm that he gave the poem special attention because of the pseudonym and affirm that he was trying to address racial injustice. It would also raise the question if he chose all the poems for the anthology based on the poets’ identities. In keeping the poem, though, Alexie commits an injustice against poets of color, and particularly poets of Asian and Chinese descent. Ultimately it’s a lose-lose situation for Sherman Alexie, but he believes he did less injustice in keeping the poem because “it would have been dishonest otherwise.”
But wait, grab some more honey because the situation is about to get stickier. One would think that if a certain white man were to use a certain Chinese nom de plume, the name would be an original, made up name. Nope, not for Mr. Michael Derrick Hudson—because apparently none of the rules apply to this guy. There is a real Yi-Fen Chou who is an engineer in Chicago, and she went to high school with Hudson in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Upon hearing about the whole scandal, Yi-Fen Chou’s family stepped forward and demanded that Hudson stop using her name for his own personal benefit. Ellen Y. Chou, the sister of Yi-Fen Chou, said in an interview that what Hudson did shows a “lack of honesty” and “careless disregard for Chinese people and for Asians.” You go, girl.
Hudson is currently a genealogist at the Allan County Public Library in Fort Wayne, where he encodes articles for the Periodical Source Index (PERSI). Taking a quick peek at his field of study, perhaps he could explain to us all that he is not in fact a Chinese woman. He writes poetry as a side job, some of which have appeared in Columbia, Georgia Review, Northwest Review, Iowa Review, Washington Square, and various other journals. He won the River Styx International Poetry Contest in 2009, Phyllis Smart Young Prize in 2009, and the New Ohio Review contests in 2010 and 2013. Through his various accolades, Hudson has shown that he has a knack for poetry. But if he has done well under his real name, why start using a pseudonym now?
It would have been one thing for him to do this as a social experiment, to show that race does impact one’s ability to succeed. However, Hudson took advantage of affirmative action, a system designed to ease long-term inequality and injustice. He benefited from a form of “minority writer nepotism,” similar to how white, male writers have long since profited from white, male nepotism. Putting on a mask and pretending to be a minority whenever it best suits you, Mr. Hudson, and then taking that same mask off when you’re done reaping the advantages only engrains the idea of white supremacy.
However, there is something to be said about the fact that we are having a conversation about a poem that was denied under one name and accepted under another. Theoretically, a poem is either good or it isn’t; it’s either a yes or a no, published or rejected. But, as illustrated by a certain someone whose certain poem is in question, this is not how the world works. Hudson’s situation raises questions not only about the publishing business, but also how we as a society determine success and praise: How important is a name in terms of appreciating the art? When editors look at a poem, are they looking more at the words and the meaning, or the name at the top of the page? If you had to pick the best seventy-five poems in America for 2015, would you look for diversity or well-written content?
So after all of this hullabaloo, what’s with the bees and Jesus and the garden of allusions? See for yourself:
