On Earth Beneath Sky

In these poems and short prose pieces Chath pierSath describes in vivid detail his refugee journey, resettlement in the United States, return to Cambodia, and continuing effort to find meaning and fulfillment in his adopted country. His bold compositions document the damage done to the Cambodian people by political fanatics and the after-effects in a nation still struggling to regain its balance. Through the author's eyes, soul, and mind, we experience his challenges and often joy as he embraces American freedom and, in the spirit of Walt Whitman, celebrates his life as a gay man, exploring the body electric and the ensuing ecstasies and at times despair. This is the voice of the new American who sounds much like the classic newcomer to the U.S., the immigrant "who gets the job done" as sung in Hamilton. He adds his stories to the big bag of American culture in a fresh voice that resonates around the globe, for he is truly an international artist. Through his intense personal history, as well as his leadership in social work and independent ethnography, Chath has channeled community and identity into all of his creativity.--Rain Taxi As Buddhists, the dead who are not properly buried are doomed to suffer in the hell realm as "hungry ghosts." Through literary expression, pierSath reunites social bonds and allows for souls to be reincarnated.--Mary Thi Pham and Jonathan H. X. Lee, Southeast Asian Diaspora in the United States . . .Chath explores memory and illusion, many of the works being derived from his own journals looking at family, love, disappointment and even hate. . . . excavating memories and juxtaposing them with historical moments . . . The cyclical nature of history, that is perpetually written and erased, is often in the hands of power--and here the artist re-claims a small part. --javaarts.org, review of "Khmer Lessons" art exhibition

Chath pierSath was born in Battambang, Cambodia in 1970. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in International Service and Development from World College West/New College of California in San Francisco, and a master of arts degree in Community Social Psychology from the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, where he lived and worked for seven years after he returned to Cambodia in 1994 to volunteer in the human rights field with the Cambodian American National Development Organization. The author of two collections of poetry, After and This Body Mystery, and a children s book, Sinat and the Instrument of the Heart, his writing has also appeared in various publications. Known internationally for his visual art, he has shown his work in Asia, Europe, and North America. He lives and works on a family farm that grows fruits and vegetables in Bolton in the Nashoba Valley of central Massachusetts. His poems and prose have appeared in many magazines and anthologies including Children of the Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors, Consequence Magazine, Café Review, Where the Road Begins, Atlantic Currents: Connecting Cork and Lowell, Prayers for a Thousand Years: Blessings and Expressions of Hope for the New Millennium, MagicalCambodia.com, and others.