About the Author
Personal
Background
In
1955, Marilyn was born in Hong Kong, where her father ran a restaurant. However,
she spent her years as an immigrant growing up in Portland, Oregon, the
Northwest of United States. Chin received her education from the University of
Massachusetts, 1997 in B.A. Chinese Literature and a M.F.A. from the University
of Iowa in 1981.
During
the late 1970s, Chin was a translator for the International Writing Program in
the University of Iowa. At the same time, she co-translated ‘The Selected Poems
of Ai Qing’ together with Eugene Eoyang. This talented poet and passionate
social activist have won countless awards. This includes two grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts, the Stegner Fellowship, the PEN/Josephine
Miles Award, four Pushcart Prizes, a Fullbright Fellowship, and more
residencies. Also, Chin’s literary works can be found in most anthologies,
including The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, The Norton Introduction to
Poetry, The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Unsettling America, The
Open Boat, and The Best American Poetry of 1996. Also, her poems were featured
in Bill Moyers’s PBS series The Language of Life.
Evident
in her poems, Chin successfully expresses important social issues. Growing up
during the era of great sociopolitical change, Chin was deeply affected by
activist poets like Adrienne Rich and continues to stress the importance of an
activist voice in her work: “I don’t quite believe in art’s sake. I believe
there must be a higher order. What we can write can change the world. That may
sound a little idealistic but I feel it’s very important that poetry make
something happen” (Wagner 1). Her collection of poems depicts her passionate
voice in her illumination of Asian-American sociopolitical concerns, notably
that of bi-cultural identity and assimilation. Greatly influenced by both
traditional Chinese culture and modern contemporary American society, Chin
offers the disconcerting relationship between these two worlds through her bold
and didactic words. All of Chin’s works exemplifies a complex intersectionality
between race and gender. Similarly, poetic form and content intersect with the
other in articulating Chin’s concerns. Chin is fearless when experimenting with
different styles and tones within a singular poem, further highlighting the
juxtaposition of two cultural worlds. Currently, Chin co-directs the M.F.A.
program at San Diego State University and continues to be an important voice in
the Asian American community.
Literary
Works
Poetry:
- · Dwarf Bamboo (1987)
- · The Phoenix Gone, the Terrance Empty (1994)
- · Rhapsody in Plain Yellow (2002)
Anthologies
- · Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. Ed. Marilyn Chin and Victoria M. Chang. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2004
- · Dissident Song: A Contemporary Asian Anthology. Ed. Marilyn Chin and David Wong Louie. 1991.
Translations
- · Qing, Ai. The Selected Poems of Ai Qing. Trans. Marilyn Chin and Eugene Eoyang. 1985
- Yoshimasu, Gozo. Devil’s Wind: A Thousand Steps of More. Trans. Marilyn Chin. Oakland University Press, 1980.
Works
about the Author
- · Green, Anne Elizabeth. “Marilyn Chin.” Contemporary Women Poets. Ed. Pamela L.
- · Shelton. Detroit: St. James Press, 1998. Wager, Jason. “Marilyn Chin.” The Chronicle. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998.
Explorations
of the Text
1.
Notice the author’s choice of the word
“cauldron” in line 4. What images or connections does this word evoke? Why
might the author have chosen “cauldron” rather than “pot”?
You go home one evening tired from work,
and your mother boils you turtle soup.
Twelve hours hunched over the hearth(who knows what else is in that cauldron).
-stanza 1
The word “cauldron” refers to
a large deep pot for boiling or cooking. This word is usually associated with
witches using cauldron to make potions. On the other hand, a pot is a normal
deep round pot used by people to cook stew, or soups. In the first stanza, the
possible reason for the author to choose such diction (in line 4) is probably
because she is trying to express dissatisfaction, feeling of disgust or hatred
towards the traditional Chinese culture that she is being forced to abide.
While the neutral word ‘pot’ does not evoke any emotions, the authors choose
something more effective in order to convey her message to the reader. In my
opinion, when I saw the word “cauldron”, the image of a wicked witch making a
greenish slimy potion using bones and gory things. This made me feel nauseous
as I imagined the poor turtle being cooked for twelve hours in hot boiling
water.
2. Chin refers to “the Wei,” “the Yellow,” and “the
Yangtze.” Why does she reference these rivers in China? Why not include the
Nile, the Amazon, or the Mississippi?
You say, “Ma, you’ve poached the symbol of long life;
that turtle lived four thousand years, swam
the Wei, up the Yellow, over the Yangtze.
-stanza 2
In line 5, the author was
talking to her mother, who is probably a pure Chinese. So, she used the
reference to the rivers in China to make her mother understand what she’s try
to say. If she included the Nile, the Amazon and Mississippi, her mother might
not relate to the author. Her mother might not even know the Nile, the Amazon
or Mississippi. Also, the author probably wanted to associate the Wei, the
Yellow and the Yangtze with the traditional Chinese culture. This is because the
tradition of eating weird things usually comes from traditional Asian Chinese
culture for medicinal or health purposes. Thus the diction chosen by the author
specifically is to address to the culture that she’s trying to focus on.
3.
What is the tone of this poem?
The tone of the poem may be
satirical, disappointed and indifferent. The author might be sarcastic of the
traditional Chinese culture that caused Chinese people to do things following
the tradition, and ended up dead like Uncle Wu, mentioned in stanza 2, line 12.
The author is trying to tell her mother that such sacrifices to follow the
ancient tradition are unnecessary to the modern era. Also, in the last stanza,
she sounded sad that the turtle’s content is gone and what’s left is only the
tradition.
No comments:
Post a Comment