Wo / men : The Interplay Between Femininity, Culture and Language in Chinese American Poetry

What are some of the themes Chinese American women write about?

Who are some prominent female Chinese American poets?

What are the differences in poetry written by first and second generation immigrants?

How do Chinese American poets incorporate aspects of their own culture into their work, or how is their work influenced by their culture?

How well does Chinese concepts translate into English words?

How does Asian American poetry reflect their unique struggles and experiences living in America?

I would like to explore contemporary poetry written by Chinese American women, because I am interested to see how my experience as a Chinese American immigrant compares to theirs. I am curious about the influence of Chinese themes, culture, and mindsets on poetry written in english. How do Chinese American poets translate a world in Chinese into English, and how does it relate to the assimilation process? I am especially interested in the incorporation of the Chinese language into an English poem. Would the combination of two worlds produce poetry that is awkward or natural? I will be sampling the work of a couple poets from the following list of poets: Jennifer Chang, Tina Chang, Carolyn Lau, Marilyn Chin, Adrienne Su, Diana Chang, and Nellie Wong. I will review all of these poets and probably end up focusing on one or two (no more than three) for the final conference paper.

I have so far used these references for preliminary research:

Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation by Victoria Chang

The Woman That I Am: The Literature and Culture of Contemporary Women of Color by D. Soyini Madison

Asian American Poets: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook by Guiyou Huang

The Ethics and Poetics of Alterity in Asian American Poetry by Xiaojing Zhou

Chinese American Poetry: an Anthology edited by L. Ling-chi Wang and Henry Yiheng Zhao

These books all contain a couple poems by the list of poets previously mentioned, which I think could be enough for me to analyze. If not I will try to find their poems online, as not many of their poetry books are available in the Brown or RISD libraries.

-Yudi