There’s always been a fascination with my past and my heritage, and it’s become a recurring theme in my work (see: “Generations“). I also love words (see: writing, my career, my entire life), so wordplay, language, and linguistics have also been topics of perpetual interest. Language forms the basis with which people communicate with each other. Therefore, language is the way people relate to each other, to define ourselves and the world around us. Growing up bilingual, speaking English and Mandarin Chinese and often being asked to translate between the two, it was natural for me to start to notice the similarities and differences between the two as I struggled to define untranslatable words or explain idioms and connotations of words in both languages. It’s become even more apparent now that I’m trying to teach Mandarin to my daughter. All of that is to say, that language and connections between them and the connections between me and my family and my past all came together to form the foundation that became my poem, “moon song.”
I was so pleased and honored to find out that this poem, which is so close to my heart, was a finalist for the annual Quarterly West poetry contest. It was published with the other fantastic finalists and winners in their Issue 108, and I’m so please to be able to share it with you. Please let me know what you think!