Repair Attempts. Poems - Cameron Quan

A poetic reckoning with personal, political, and historical wounds

The titular "repair attempts" describes the words and actions people use to heal broken connections and de-escalate conflict. In his debut collection, Cameron Quan transforms this concept into a powerful lens for examining moral responsibility in contemporary America. Quan's Repair Attempts navigates Asian American identity, American exceptionalism, patriarchal violence, grief, and the nature of apologies. The speakers grapple with transgression and healing from unexpected angles, asking what kind of repair is possible in a world marred by atrocities. These poems dance across landscapes—from an imagined American holiday of atonement to the pope's apology to Indigenous peoples, from a mother preparing to flee domestic violence to an unsettling childhood game boys play with butterflies. A chorus of repair attempts that toggle between the personal and political, this collection invites us into difficult territory where failure, wrongdoing, and shame require a collective reckoning and a collective effort to be better.