Photo of Reid Mitchell © Martin Alexander
Describing a great and complex man as Reid Hardeman Mitchell (1955-2023) is not easy—he was a poet and a professor, bon vivant and raconteur, historian and novelist, gourmand, chef and scholar, adventurer and rabble-rouser—and the dearest of friends, all contained within the sturdy frame of a proud New Orleanian whose rich, folksy accent ebulliently expressed his love for verse, art, and life.
I was honoured to be one of his good friends here in Hong Kong, one of many who now mourn him. We met at Poetry OutLoud, the predecessor to today’s OutLoud HK, during a break in the performances. The bearded Southern gentleman in the cream-coloured tropical suit was cheerful and charming, with a fund of stories from all over the United States, as well as tales of forays into Southeast Asia and mainland China, where he spent most of his academic career. As is the case with most legends, I’m unsure of the exact date we met, but I seem to recall it was the spring of 2006. Not long after, Reid joined our blended band of academics, teachers, journalists, students and various other scribblers and verse-slingers to become a Peel Street Poet.
Reid’s sojourn in Hong Kong as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hong Kong had run its course by the summer of 2006, and he began teaching at Tsinghua University in Beijing after stints at other universities in mainland China. He still took the time to come down to Hong Kong each summer, and remained heavily involved with literary movements in the city—he served as a poetry editor for the Asia Literary Review; collaborated closely with Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, wrote voluminously, and remained, at least during the summers, a devoted Peel Street Poet who regaled us with poems from his youth in New Orleans as well as more recent offerings based on experiences in mainland China.
Away from poetry, a number of us would converge at Champs, a sports bar in Wan Chai next to the Charterhouse, Reid’s hotel of choice for the summer months in Hong Kong, for conversations that ran for hours as we discussed everything from poetry to politics to blues music to travels around Asia. With much cold beer and warm cheer, Reid holding court as he regaled us with anecdotes and maxims, literary wisdom and a wisecracking humour that had us in fits. He was one of the most learned men I knew, and was also most modest about it—instead of feeling like a student towards a lecturer as he spoke on a given topic, it was colleagues, good friends sharing knowledge as we talked of Bei Dao, the New Orleans-set TV drama Treme, George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels (Reid even claimed to be an illegitimate great-grandson of that Victorian arch-cad), teaching in the mainland and the usual Hong Kong literary gossip.
There’s a point in any relationship when you learn more about a friend, and when Reid was up at one of the several universities in mainland China he ended up teaching at, we’d keep up a correspondence mostly by email, and occasionally through text. In those exchanges, he would tell me more about the books he had written, the universities he had taught at both in the United States and Asia, and his experiences through Asia. He told me a little about his ex-wife, his continuing friendship with her, and the aspirations and regrets he’d had in life. Despite the distance, we became close. Reid was my first peer editor for my upcoming poetry collection, and I owe him a debt of gratitude that I cannot now pay back, except in remembrance. He was exacting yet enthusiastic about the verse that I compiled, and his encouragement was invaluable.
He, like many other expat scholars who had taught abroad for a long time, worried about the future. He became a family friend. He came to our home, and cooked for us as authentic a New Orleans Creole spread as he could manage, given the challenge in finding ingredients. He needn’t have worried, for his cuisine was exquisite. My wife and son took well to Reid, and we would all look forward for whenever he could visit. He seemed happy enough, and at the times we hung out with other poets and sometimes students, Reid elicited the sort of respect and loyalty that at times almost resembled reverence. While there were times he could display a quick temper, especially in response to unfairness or injustice, his quick wit, warm humour and gracious kindness were the hallmarks of his personality.
I believe his long-term goal was to stay in Asia, and teach until a well-earned retirement. Unfortunately, restrictions on age prevented him teaching much longer in China, and once Reid had returned to the United States, I had the feeling that it would be challenging to find his necessary space again. He also began to struggle with health issues, but being the man he was, didn’t want to trouble folks too much with his own troubles. Communication with him became more erratic, and his messages became more terse, over longer intervals until I simply didn’t hear from him anymore. It was social media that alerted me to his passing, and it was mainly on social media I could mourn. Physical and now existential distance prevented everything else.
The preservation of a poet is in verse, and Reid’s most moving poems were contained in his final collection Sell Your Bones, where he intones filial piety, as in “All Saints Day”, “If I missed my father’s deathbed / and my mother’s and neglect / their tomb, filial / I honor their example; melancholic love in “Autobiography”, “Like most men saddest in the night / the night who gives us black sky and black song / the night who whitens / birches and women’s bodies”; the comfort flavor of authentic Hong Kong fare in “Seeking Food Soul Hong Kong”, “Fat duck’s cold fat, cabbage leaf / pork belly crisp like snap-peas / and rice waits willing to receive / temporary blessing”; invocation of mythology in “Lit By Fujian Moonlight”, “I’m building a green dragon / in my moonlit bedroom / I hope she brings me luck”;or most tellingly, the declaration of a stalwart itinerant in “Men Near The Equator” who boasts, “My brothers / we born south of winter / We who own no land / We have lost our land our lives / our mothers / My brothers, we need only the strength / of blood, muscle / tongue”.Fidelity, unrequited love, street corner midnight feasts and wondrous legends from ancient civilisations were hallmarks of Reid’s poetic sense, all derived from the landscapes he traversed and inhabited intensely.
Reid loved life, as deeply in Hong Kong as he did in Fujian, Beijing, Guangzhou and New Orleans, and the diverse themes of his eloquent verse accurately depict his equally multifarious life. Yet Reid was also a noted historian of New Orleans traditions, and the US Civil War. He wrote at least three books concerning the Civil War that defined his part of the world: The Vacant Chair: The Northern Soldier Leaves Home (1993), Civil War Soldiers (1997), and The American Civil War 1861-65 (2001). It was also a pleasure to be able to learn and discover more about American history with a friend who was also a respected scholar on the subject.
I recall the many nights I had with Reid, either by ourselves or with other friends, at Joyce’s Bar and Café, at Peel Fresco, Champs, and various other dives, pubs and bars in and around Central or Wan Chai discussing, arguing and guffawing about everything and anything over a continuous flow of surrounding conversations, cold beer, bad ’80s pop tunes and the excellent companionship of a brilliant scholar and a great friend. Now he has passed off this mortal coil, it is the works from his books, poetic and historic, that will keep alive our conversations. At least, his words in print endure, as elegant, buoyant, vibrant, quotidian and metaphysical narratives that may last centuries past ourselves. Through the works of this great and beautiful man, my friend, Reid Mitchell, I yet speak with him, as we always had.
How to cite: Jeje, Akin. “A Tribute to Reid Mitchell.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 9 Jan. 2024, chajournal.blog/2024/01/09/reid-mitchell.
Akin Jeje‘s works have been published and featured in Canada, the United States, Singapore, Australia, the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. His first full-length poetry collection, Smoked Pearl was published by Proverse Hong Kong in 2010. Akin’s upcoming poetry collection is entitled write about here. He is currently at work on a novel entitled Maroon. He is a previous MC of the Hong Kong English language poetry collective Peel Street Poetry, and one of its three directors. Akin is also a regular contributor to Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine and Cha (asiancha | chajournal | hkprotesting) [All contributions by Akin Jeje.]