poem two / 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. Web Gallery Nellie at Great China Restaurant…
Chinese Culture Center San Francisco, California September 14, 2024 Nellie Wong If art cannot engage with life, it has no future —Ai Weiwei The literature, poetry, art, songs of Asian America sail and float throughout the cosmos, indeed on earth through workers’ hands, their compassion, survivors’ instincts, their respect for the living and the dead, for permanent revolution, our communal search for bread and roses, for beauty. Our voices may tremble or shout, murmur, somersault,…
poem one / 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. Web Gallery The Gee Wong Family (1944)…
A Movie Review by Nellie Wong | February 2024 “A woman by herself is a beautiful thing,” intones the narrator of Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space, a two-hour documentary produced in 2023 by PBS for the American Experience series. This vibrant film speaks well about a heretofore under-recognized anthropologist, playwright, novelist, and researcher. The viewer sees Hurston “claim her space” by doing the work she wanted to do: to tell the stories of Black…
IRONING, IRONING (For Tillie Olsen) Like a drunken fool I pick out the wrinkles linen and shirt, the foam-green dress, the black, long sleeve T and I drink ice cold glasses of lemon tea as the temperature lingers at 90 plus degrees. When I ironed as a 12-year old, I listened to the radio. Imogene Coco and Sid Caesar battled in their boisterous humor, the Lone Ranger and his faithful companion, Tonto, rode in clouds…
Three Seasons (Vietnamese title: Ba mùa) is a 1999 American film shot in Vietnam about the past, present, and future of Ho Chi Minh City in the early days of Doi Moi. It is a poetic film that tries to paint a picture of the urban culture undergoing westernization. The movie takes place in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. As the characters try to come to terms with the invasion of capitalism, neon signs,…
DING LING (1904 – 1986) Nellie writes, “Ding Ling was a prolific author of revolutionary China. Her early short stories focusing on young Chinese women greatly influenced the world of socialist and feminist literature. One of her notable works, “When I Was in Xia Village,” inspired several of my own poems. How fortunate to meet my literary heroine during the First American Women Writers Tour to China in 1983.” Tell These Hands In a modest…
Angels of earth and agate, silver splinters Battling death, gliding and swooping, skimming the seas when Chinese warriors Jiu Jin and Ding Ling, their wings, their wings Dive and wash, dine with Owen Dodson and Tillie Olsen, American, Effervescence of words dotting breastplates, dotting their bodies in Finery of hungry ghosts of concubines and blacksmiths who Galvanize streams and rivers, haw flakes red and glistening In their mouths, teeth for Justice against random, against planned…
My eyes follow themWomen in Burqas of gold, cream, blue,Burgundy, women unseen, travellingto a wedding party to somewhereIn KandaharHow do I know that they are womenExcept that only women wear Burqas,Covered from head to foot with squaresOf opening, netted or crocheted,Framing their eyesAnd even in their embroidered beautyThe intricate stitching of the coversOver their heads do not distract My eyes follow themChildren in cotton in colors of birdsTheir eyes fixed on the unseen viewer,Their eyes…
So you want to write. A poet, a playwright a storyteller, a magician! And to write, you think you have to be a sociologist, an environmentalist, a psychologist, an observer of human behavior, and a scholar too! Well, prove it. The least you could do is pay attention to me. How would you like to be covered up like this, not knowing the light basking in the colors of this universe? Go, go! Traipse around…