If you’re a poetry fan, especially vivid poems that tell a story, then Richard Blanco’s HOMELAND OF MY BODY is a book you’ll love. The 117 poems focus on he and his mother’s homeland, identity, and the body. If I paired this with a beverage it would have to be non-alcoholic (water) because I’d be drunk and crying halfway through the book. Instead I’d have pieces of Ferrero Rocher chocolates to accompany the richness of the poems.
You know when a book is just so good you don’t want it to end? That’s how I felt about THE BERRY PICKERS by Amanda Peters. An indigenous family (Canada, Mi’kmaq) travel to Maine every year to harvest blueberries. Their four-year old daughter, Ruthie, goes missing from the fields, setting off a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors. In alternating chapters we hear from Ruthie and Joe, her brother, who was the last to see her. Pair this with iced tea and chocolate covered blueberries. But drink and eat slowly because you’ll read long into the night.
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Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit 2023 with lights and gold-colored Chinese lanterns, and a rabbit on the red background, the Chinese stamp means rabbit, and the vertical Chinese phrase means Year of the Rabbit.
The last lunar new year was the year of the Tiger, which advised us that the year would be full of action and impulse. I’d say the prediction hit the nail on the head.
The 2023 lunar new year is the year of the Rabbit. The year predicts a more relaxed and inwardly focused period. The rabbit reminds us to spend more time in self-reflection.
IOW: Chill Time.
I’m not making this up. This prediction is given by Jonathan H.X. Lee, a professor of Asian and Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University:
“There is a lot of possibility for prosperity and flourishing, and for peace, really,” said Lee, whose research focuses on religions and folklore. “The rabbit is a very strong symbol for peace.”
The rabbit in the Chinese zodiac also speaks to the power of empathy, giving, and receiving compassion. The word for this year is HOPE. A great word for any year.
In this poem, the author belies her father’s wish for her to be born in the year of the Rabbit. The verses hop from left to right.
Ode to Chinese Superstitions
Chinese superstition tells me it’s bad luck
to get a haircut when I’m sick, and my hair
gets cut twice a year, because I let it grow,
tying it into a ponytail, exposing my forehead,
looking like I’m the protagonist of an anime,
which makes me think about my last name,
Chan, also known as the Japanese honorific
for someone endearing. Chan, like a friend
or someone childlike. I’ve been told I sound
like a child when I pick up the phone, or maybe
it’s my pure joy to hear from the ones I love.
And yes, voices are sexier than faces, so dial me,
honey, let’s get a little wild tonight, as I pour
a glass of bourbon and picture myself in anime—
cartoon Chan starring in a slice-of-life show
about a girl group trying to make it, and you bet
I’d be the rambunctious one, the tomboy-
rabble-rouser-ringleader on the drums—
the trouble with the exposed forehead, also
known in East Asian culture as a symbol
of aggression, because an exposed forehead
puts everything out there—you’re telling
the world you’re ready for a takedown,
and according to my father, good Chinese
girls never show their foreheads, and I know
he wishes I were born in the Year of the Rabbit,
like my mother, the perfect woman with flawless
skin who never causes trouble with the boys, but
no, I’m the Year of the Snake, and I always bring
the party, cause the trouble, or as my lover says,
I’m sarcastic wit personified, and it’s boundless,
because I am Dorothy—pop embodied in a gingham
skirt with a puppy and a picnic basket
filled with prosciutto and gouda and Prosecco,
but really, what is my fate? And my mother
tells me the family fortune teller got me all
wrong, because there’s no way in hell
I’d end up being a housewife with three
children and a breadwinner of a husband.
But of course, the fortune teller got my brother’s
fate right. It’s moments like this when I wonder
if I even matter because I’m a girl and not a boy.
It’s moments like this when I think about my fate,
or how Chinese superstition tells me not to cut or wash
my hair on Lunar New Year, so all my good fortune
won’t be snipped away. But really, what is fate?
I tie my hair back and put on a short skirt, ready
to take over the world—forehead forever exposed.
Dorothy Chan
alvaradofrazier.com 