poem three / 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. Nellie shares a memory about the dress…
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…
Hung Liu. Strange Fruit: Comfort Women, 2001, oil on canvas, 80 x 160. Private collection. http://www.hungliu.com/comfort-women.html Seven women, strange fruit, stare at you Their eyes awash with tears dripping, cast downward onto yellow straw hats, their fingers at rest but for one, stern without malice, pulls you into paint, a butterfly with purple and white wings of unheard voices as comfort women unsurreal, their lives forsaken in droughts, the moisture of art in world war…
On the first day of school the teacher asked me: What do your parents call you at home? I answered: Nellie. Nellie? Nellie? The teacher stressed the l’s, whinnying like a horse. No such name in Chinese for a name like Nellie. We shall call you Nah Lei which means Where or Which Place. The teacher brushed my new name, black on beige paper. I practiced writing Nah Lei Holding the brush straight, dipping the…
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…