Overview
A formally experimental and absurdist mock-epic poem that melds speculative fiction and travel writingSomething on the horizon inches toward the drunken villagers of Zonal Beach, but what--or who--could it be? In First Contact, Warren Liu presents a hilarious, polyphonic poem that narrates the agonizingly slow-motion progress of a first contact encounter between coastal natives and shipwrecked would-be colonizers. Liu's wry, humorous poetry uses three distinct voices to highlight the inherent farce of coming up against a world entirely different from one's own. Slipping between tropes of colonial myth-making and alien encounters, Liu animates the strange, slanted rhymes of history with a voracious wit and deft ear. Whether narrating the choral chatter of the bewildered villagers or a mystic's pop-culture-informed oracular visions or the epistolary reminiscences of a lost exile, Liu demonstrates again and again how colliding with a new culture always happens first as farce, then as farce once more.Warren Liu is a professor of English at Scripps College in Claremont, California.
- | Author: Warren Liu
- | Publisher: Kaya Press
- | Publication Date: Apr 28, 2026
- | Number of Pages: 112 pages
- | Binding: Paperback or Softback
- | ISBN-10: 193571726X
- | ISBN-13: 9781935717263
