88 Tongues
Nellie Wong wrote this poem, almost completely in Hoisan-wa, in anticipation of her 88th Birthday, creating the English translation on September 12, 2022 – her 88th Birthday. She shared the poem in July of 2023 with her Hoisan sisters, Flo Oy Wong and Genny Lim. The three poets performed together as The Last Hoisan Poets. I wrote it in the spring of my 87th birthday, stretching my brain of our dialect that’s there. Nellie read…