What makes music, music and poetry, poetry? What is it exactly that differentiates the two? Those are the things I was thinking about while reading Xiong's "because I am it's a race thing trip" and began to think of the spaces between words and phrases less as pauses and more as beats, moments were perhaps a drumbeat or a certain note would repeat throughout a song. The repetitions in two particular places seem to take on the quality of choruses. First:

______________________geisha
I mean
______________________china doll
I mean
______________________lotus blossom
I mean
______________________passive submissive exotic slant-eyed slut

The number of syllables in the words on the right slowly grow from two to three to four while the repetition of the words I mean continue to string the phrases all together into a cohesive rhythm that lulls the reader right before the form breaks and explodes into a rapid flow of insults/expletives. The feel of the words is a slow build to a crescendo of sound, an explosion of emotion. What does this do for the reader? I think it has the effect of shocking someone from complacency. By using the specific pejoratives the author chose it serves to link the more aversive bigotry of the first few phrases, those termed "harmless" or "compliments" by people privileged enough not to see it or be affected by it, to the more explicitly insulting and problematic burst out line.

The second example of a chorus-like moment I found was :

america_______________________railroads
america_______________________ laundry
america's chinese
america_______________________ home of the brave
america_______________________ sugar canes
america_______________________ concentration camps
america's japanese
america_______________________ land of the free
america_______________________wonder bra and corsets
america_______________________plastic surgery and liposuction
america's______________________demonization of women
don't lecture me about the savage practice of footbinding

Even though the words are completely different than the example above there are quite a few parallels - the use of repetitive language on the left side while the right side words slowly grow larger and larger this time by an increase in lines rather than syllables and the same scheme is used an increase of 2->3->4 and again the rhythm is broken by a much larger explosion of words that serve to break the reader from a the steadiness experiences in the previous lines. The focus is different as well in this case it is less about exposing the stereotypes of American mono-culture and more about exposing the hypocrisy of the West. The refusal of America to ever accept it's Asian-American communities despite continual contributions to that society. It's foretold by the very first line of the poem:

I am asian________america

The divide between asian and america no matter of family history, contribution or pain or servitude at the hands of the government. None of these seem to make a bridge between asian and america, always outside of society.

The last phrase in that second chorus discussing the demonization of women in Western society which is consistently misrepresented as freedom and used as a way to other many different cultures. I'm reminded of a article that came out in Vogue magazine during the initial invasion of Afghanistan where they spoke of the horrible position of women there and that they would serves as liberators...by teaching the women cosmetology and how to open their own beauty salons. The article went on to say that they had learned many of the women could not read the instruction manuals they had brought and so instead of teaching the women how to read they were now providing manuals with diagrams so they would not have to read. What type of liberation is that?

Women are in a marginalized position throughout the West but the focus of any continued work in that direction is subverted outward in a spread of our "liberation" which is really no liberation at all. That's what Xiong is calling up here, critiquing the American's continual condemnation of footbinding while other forms of physical painful and debilitating are acceptable--plastic surgery, dieting at increasingly young ages, stiletto heels that cause immense back problems later in life, etc. It's not about supporting footbinding at all but pointing out that America has its own fair share of problems that it chooses to ignore while it continually demonizes other cultures.

The uses of the repeated slow build in these two "chorus" sections serves to punctuate the poem, to make these passages stand out and resonate like a song you just can't get out of your head.