Prose
Halley Le
This prose explores the historical and social context of tooth blackening in Vietnam and the changes in significance over the years.
Iva Sopta
There is a small-big house, in the middle of the street, right of the village “square.” A small garden, a big yard, lots of wood, and yellow flowers to the left of the clothesline.
poetry
“tongue/tied thoughts after ‘living english work’” was inspired by an image of a child undergoing tongue surgery in Min-Zhan Lu’s paper “Living English Work.” The image was black and white, low resolution. I think I saw a surgical knife cut through the plump lower lip of the child. The visceral pain inspired this piece. Exploring the nuanced relationship first-generation immigrants have with English is a thematic underpin for this piece. As the child undergoes a painful surgery to literally transform their tongue, the poem also attempts to capture the symbolism around this process: the hope to assimilate with perfect English, desire for legitimation, and the boundaries of hope.
Helen Chen
Nicholas Denton Cheng
Kikkoman hums in a frying pan filled with
Wood ear (mù'ěr), 冬瓜, and leftover turkey from a
Thanksgiving meal,
I am fascinated by shame and the ways it transforms into pride and confidence, if you give it a chance to. I inherited a lot of shame through my differences — feeling as if I were unwanted because of my skin color or my hair texture or the gap in my mouth. “Diastema” is a love letter, an apology to my heritage, an apology to my deliberate features that make me who I am. I write to a younger self, who would be floored by how far we have come in our confidence and acceptance. At the time of writing this piece, I had yet to meet my grandmother in person. After having met her, however, I know that even with all the distance, I can just look in the mirror, smile widely, and watch her appear. Writing about my gap reminded me that I am so deeply tied to a lineage of women with unmatched passion and beautiful, bright grins.
Stephanie Dinsae
Jiang Kui (1155–1221), was a Song dynasty poet. The son of a minor official, he never obtained a government office, but spent much of his life traveling in the countryside. He is particularly well known for his cí, lyric poems written in literary Chinese but influenced by folk traditions, and intended to be sung to a particular musical tune; here, Jiang Kui appears to have composed the lines first, without adherence to poetic conventions, then composed music to accompany them (the original music has been lost, but a wonderful reconstructed performance by Yuan Jung Ping is available on vimeo and youtube). The pavilion of the poem's title is actually a remote traveler's inn; the poem is narrated from the perspective of an official whose post has separated him from his home.
Julian Preston
Alisha Shrestha
That’s over 123 ways to try and say I love you. Here, I only say
it in English. I learnt English on the other side to be on the other side
of the other side. It takes over today to siphon the thickness out
of my tongue trying to fit in the room that is not meant for me. You see
My pillow is drenched in coconut oil, sweat
I am parched in this June heat
when she comes, water and lantern in hand
For the past year or so, I had been writing persona poems in search of exploring identities that I will never
want/get to occupy. This poem personifies the idea of Americana from a distance as it explores the dilemmas of
coexisting in a landscape that isn’t yours.
Ayesha Bashir
i am boxes melding
the black lines join together
my blood is ink spilling out
Laila Ali-Diaz
Visual Art
Xiao Ma
Since coming to NYC I've been taking pictures of what's stuck in the trees. They are fascinating to me: all kinds of things get stuck in all kinds of places. Most of the time, I don't look up, and when I do, things surprise me. There's not too much about this set of work, just thought to have fun with it, and it might be fun to be stuck.