The Real Yi-Fen Chou: What a Fake Asian Poet Taught Us about Actual Asian Poets

Guest Post by Timothy Yu


I'm on vacation! This week, I'm taking a much-needed break to recharge the batteries and get a change of scenery. To keep things going around here, I've enlisted the help of several friends of the blog to submit guest posts on various topics of their choosing. Here's one from Professor Timothy Yu.

The message landed in my inbox late on a weekend night: Have you seen this? Attached was a link to a contributor's note to The Best American Poetry 2015, an anthology edited annually by a different well-known poet. The bio was for a poet named Yi-Fen Chou, one of 75 included in this year's anthology. But Yi-Fen Chou was not Yi-Fen Chou at all:

regarding the yellowface poet

By Franny Choi



[ Poem in response to m.d.h., white poet who used a Chinese pseudonym to get published in Best American Poetry. ]

The Real Yi-Fen Chou is Not Okay with Your Fake Poetry Name

Poet Michael Derrick Hudson went to the same high school as Yi-Fen Chou in Fort Wayne, Indiana.



So now we all know about the pseudonymic deception of white guy poet Michael Derrick Hudson, who couldn't get his work published under his own regular-ass name, so he used a Chinese pen name, "Yi-Fen Chou," and got a poem placed in the prestigious Best American Poems anthology. Controversy ensues.

Now it turns out that fake Chinese name was borrowed from a real person -- who is not okay with it.

Family Protests White Poet's Use of Chinese Pen Name

It looks like Michael Derrick Hudson didn't just make up his now-infamous wong de plume out of thin air. The family of a woman actually named Yi-Fen Chou, who apparently attended the same high school as Hudson in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has stepped forward, demanding that he cease using the name immediately.

Meet the white guy submitting poetry as "Yi-Fen Chou"

The poetry of "Yi-Fen Chou," aka Michael Derrick Hudson, is featured in 'The Best American Poetry 2015.'



Readers of the newly published edition of The Best American Poetry 2015, a prestigious annual poetry anthology, have come across a very peculiar entry regarding the "nom de plume" of one its contributors. It turns out that "Yi-Fen Chou" is the pen name of a white dude named Michael Derrick Hudson. The fuck?

Folks, if there is such a thing as employing yellowface in poetry, this has to be it. Hudson claims that he regularly submits his poetry under the name "Yi-Fen" after being rejected "a multitude of times" under his real name. The strategy has apparently turned out to be "quite successful" for him.

His explanation: