poem five / Nellie Wong at Ninety
NELLIE WONG celebrates her ninetieth birthday with the publication of Nothing Like Freedom, her fifth collection, after Dreams of Harrison Railroad Park (1977), Death of Long Steam Lady (1986), Stolen Moments (1997), and Breakfast Lunch Dinner (2012). “Nellie Wong at Ninety” is a digital companion project centered around nine poems, chosen by Nellie to represent each decade of her storied life.
After Del Sol Quartet’s Angel Island concert on June 21, 2025,
Nellie discusses her friendship with Merle Woo and Mitsuye Yamada, and the
2003 Radical Women Publications booklet, “3 Asian American writers speak out on feminism.”
Nellie reads the introduction to her poem, “Toward the Rainbow,”
written following a workshop on Third World Women Writers, sponsored by the
Feminist Writer’s Guild and Options for Women over 40, November 10, 1979.
Radical Women – Freedom Socialist Party
Radical Women was founded in 1967 by two seasoned feminist revolutionaries, Clara Fraser and Gloria Martin, and by young radicals from the Students for a Democratic Society who were fed up with sexism. The new group’s mission: to provide a feminist voice in the labor, antiwar and civil rights movements and a radical voice in the women’s liberation movement. Today Radical Women is an autonomous organization affiliated by program and aims with the Freedom Socialist Party.