Diary of Small Discontents: New & Selected Poems 1974-2024

A collection of poetry showcasing the diversity of subjects and forms in Yau’s writing.

This collection brings together work from half a century of writing by John Yau. Preoccupied with forms and musical structures, Yau’s work includes sestinas, sonnets, pantoums, and lists, as well as invented forms. Employing both strict and open-ended frameworks, Yau creates multi-faceted poems that can shift abruptly from humor to outrage and consider topics including Chinese American identity, school shootings, invented countries, and haunted memories. Some poems are grounded in an autobiographical voice, while others take on the voices of other characters, including contemporary artists and a fictional Chinese private eye.

Spanning the vast diversity of Yau’s forms and subjects, the poems in Diary of Small Discontents add up to an unapologetically original collection.

John Yau is a poet, art critic, fiction writer, and publisher whose recent books include Tell it Slant, Genghis Chan on Drums, and Please Wait by the Coat Room: Reconsidering Race and Identity in American Art. He founded Black Square Editions and cofounded the online magazine Hyperallergic Weekend. He has received awards and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets, among others. He is professor emeritus at Rutgers University and lives in Beacon, New York.