"Acclaimed poet, artist and art critic Yau dazzles us with his Diary of Small Discontents . Whether it's the early poem with a child playing on the stoop in 'After Moving,' or the late pantoum/elegy 'For Brice Marden (1938 - 2023) via Han Shan,' Yau's range of expressive moods and moves is extraordinary. Conversations with painters themselves give rise to the balanced beauty of 'Ventriloquist for Jasper Johns' or the finely wrought series, 'A Painter's Thoughts.' Yau's acute, incisive wit is unflinching. Behind the wit is a gravity, a kind of radiant compassion with a flinty blade, as in 'On Being Told That I Don't Look and Act Chinese.' The wry, contradictory mix of issues like race, class, 'the headman . the deadman,' is compelling. Yau's speculative koans operate to puzzle conceptual thought.

His irresistible Diary of Small Discontents is the enduring conversation that we seek.".