Poetry Friday - A Suitcase of Seaweed

        Jama Rattigan, at Jama's Alphabet Soup, hosts this first Friday in May, filling us with flowers! Thanks, Jama!

I will take a break, sometime, but in my planning for this day, I didn't realize I would be so inspired by Janet Wong's new (old) book, A Suitcase of Seaweed & more. 
       In the beginning, Janet asks: If you were asked to divide your identity into three parts, what would you say? Mom-Dad-You? Child-Friend-Student? Serious-Silly-Silent? How would you like to be seen?
        In this, not really old, but beautifully revised poetry book, Janet has divided it into three parts, the three parts of herself: Korean, Chinese, and American. Each part shares poems accompanied by backstories. And each of those ends with a question for response. Whether I responded in my head, or like today, in poetry, I was inspired. I tried hard to answer Janet's questions and this time, chose cheritas as the form. 


  Janet writes about her parents meeting during the Korean war, father American with his 'crooked smile', mother Korean with her 'long braid', falling in love. She asked if we the readers knew how our parents met.

       My mother's brother introduced my parents when she first went off to college. 

once on a college campus

there was that pretty girl, 
that handsome boy

war was coming, married in May

in one year, he’s off to pilot training, off to war

she’s back home with baby me

             They only had a few years together, sporadic because of the war. My father was shot down in the Pacific Ocean near Leyte in the Philippines. The plane was never recovered.

            In Janet's Chinese section, she shares a lot about her grandparents. There is a sweet poem you may all know about Janet's grandfather asking what she studied in school. When she answered poetry, he didn't understand what it was, responding, "Po-tree," he says. "It got fruit?" I spent my early childhood living with my mother's parents and often visiting my father's parents' big farm in the summer. I hold many sweet memories with them. My maternal grandmother spent hours doing things with me, teaching me about cooking and gardening, but best of all, listening and offering ways of facing life.

porch-swinging afternoon conversations  

my grandmother and I spoke of life’s struggles

she helped me find practical paths  

now grateful from afar 

I also understand that

ten-year-olds see only ahead

           The American section introduces the past of grandparents and Janet's past, too. She speaks of poverty and choosing inexpensive things in a restaurant if someone else is buying. I don't know why, but that is the way I was brought up, too, to make my choices in light of others. We didn't have much money when I grew up, but my mother and her family had it worse during the Depression. At one time they shared a house with another family in order to save money. Both families had five children, but they managed. My mother told of fun games the children played, but also the times they only had potatoes for dinner.

I wonder at the gifts opened today

on my brother's birthday, shown in a home movie

he opened a pack of pencils and a Big Chief tablet

we had cake, too, and homemade ice cream

the treasured gifts were family arrivals –

grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, too

           Janet adds an "Advice for Writers" section at the back, for writing and for publishing. It's a special book for everyone, questions that help dig into memory to discover who you are, and perhaps help children find who they are and who they want to be. Janet's backstories are as inspiring as her poems. I imagine a class of students writing their own poems accompanied with its story just as Janet has in this wonderful book. Teachers and students will love it!