David Mura’s “liner notes”

Use the code “NAPOMO14” when ordering The Last Incantations for a special discount!

Kick Push –  Lupe Fiasco: in the piece of the same name in The Last Incantations, a teenage Chinese/Flip American skateboarder relates the story of his relationship with a Somali American girl.

American Terrorist – Lupe Fiasco:  back when people thought Lupe was the hope of hip-hop, an invocation of history and politics.

He Loves Me – Jill Scott:  “Things That Lose By Being Painted” opens with a Japanese American man and woman in a bar listening to Jill Scott.

Good Kid–Kendrick Lamar: one of my son’s favorites, a beat on his I-pod in “My Son In Ninth Grade.”

Made in America  – Toby Keith: on the jukebox in the first section of “Crystal: Down by the Border.”

Yadava Niba  – Tony Khalife: great Lebanese American guitarist, whose story I reference in “Peter Wu’s Poem.”  I first met Tony at a reading where Elmaz Abinader read with Tony and an Arab American jazz trio and I read with San Jose Taiko.

What’s Goin’ On – Marvin Gaye: the backdrop for the poem, “Song for an Asian American Radical,” which is about the activist Yuri Kochiyama; her friendship with Malcolm X is referenced in “Poem for Patricia Smith Upon My Nomination for the Urban Griots Award.

Begin the Beguine  – Ella Fitzgerald: I think of my father listening to “Begin the Beguine” in his youth; it’s associated with “The Great Nisei Novel, circa 1949.”

A Love Supreme – John Coltrane: the Chinese American artist in “Abstract Expressionist” listens to Coltrane as he paints.

Boom Boom Boom  – John Lee Hooker: in “Poets of My Youth,” I reference Hooker playing at a bar where I met a woman who claimed she slept with John Berryman; members of Hooker’s band once showed up at a party I was having on the West Bank in Minneapolis.

One Wish – Hiroshima: Garrett Hong once joked that I and Hiroshima constantly try to use Sansei, third generation Japanese American, in our titles.