Archive for the ‘Septuagenarian’ Category

• WHAT MATTERS TO ME IS STORY

  Date: 2021.09.06 | Category: Poetry, Septuagenarian, The Art of Writing | Response: 0

  WHAT MATTERS TO ME IS STORY

   

  It’s been six months since my memoir in verse, Septuagenarian, debuted.  I think about this as another Minnesota poet, and another, and another has released another book of poems.  I think about how different our voices are. How different our techniques. I am less about craft and more about subject. Perhaps because I was told I didn’t learn how to write in graduate school, I didn’t want to prove them wrong.  Or, perhaps, because I was told that what I wrote about wasn’t trendy, I did want to prove them wrong. Trendy not why I write, but that what I write matters (if only to me).  As Deborah Keenan said about my book:

   

  Sherry Quan Lee writes with a purity of intention.  She has no interest in certain kinds of poetics that conceal, or only honor, adornment.  She has her gaze on the long sweep of her personal history.

   

  What matters to me is self-awareness and healing and to know and accept that I am strong—that I am okay. What matters to me is story. And knowing that mine is only one story, but stories intersect no matter how different they may seem, at least that’s been my experience.  Sometimes it’s a similar time and location, a tragedy, a celebration, gender, culture, sexuality, race, age—family.

   

  Yet, since publication, I have seldom opened my book to read what I had written.  Out of fear or out of closure I’m not sure which, maybe both.

   

  Recently I finally let go of dollars to find a streaming service where I could watch Queen Sugar.  I am on Season 4.  Every episode of the entire series has my emotions roller coasting as I come to it from my history and my experience. Nova is an activist, an artist.  She wrote a memoir telling family stories, divulging secrets.  Her family is unforgiving.

   

  Beginning seven years ago my sisters one by one turned from me.  If there was an excuse it was, to me, senseless; one sibling yelling she hoped my writing friends took care of me.  One sibling saying my highs and lows were too much for her.  And one sibling refused to come up with an excuse.  Were they afraid of my truth-telling?  Was I wrong to share our stories? Did my writing have nothing or everything to do with the separations? Two of my  three sisters gave me permission, the other sister I respectfully left out of my books.  I even changed my last name (another kind of separation).

   

  I hope Nova and her family can reconcile and forgive.  Yet for me, separation feels healthy, but sad—I can’t stop grieving.  Is truth-telling for a greater good if the truth be told continues a history of separation?   Does a writer/an artist have control over what they write? Are we born to disrupt?  Can our souls/our spirits handle the repercussions, the displacement?

   

  My most recent book struggles with the theme of separation.  The separations that have cursed my family. Black families/slave families were separated by the auction block, if not that assigned duties and  gender were other forms of separation.  A female slave assigned to house duties-including the duty of fulfilling the master’s sexual improprieties.  And from those liaisons, babies of various skin colors/mixed-race babies—my great-grandmother–added another dimension to the separation of families. Black men were lynched.

   

  Separation was created by laws that kept Chinese immigrants, who came to work in America as cheap labor, from bringing their wives.  West Coast Japanese were separated during WWII most in internment camps, some joined or were drafted into the armed services, others were able to attend college in Minnesota.  My Chinese father joined the Navy because he wanted to, leaving a wife and two young daughters’ home in Minneapolis while he fought the Japanese from a ship out at sea.

   

  My story is complex (as yours probably is too):  poverty, passing, fear, anger, divorce, addictions–separations.  Each poem, each book releases and sets aside who I was to create space for who I am.  Yet who I was has a way of creeping into who I am so I will never be free enough to be happy; but I am emotionally healthy which comes from years of learning, of therapy, of listening, of reading–of truth-telling. Minnesota is a choir of many voices, many songs; poetry. Colorful/diverse writers inform me, connect me, keep me from becoming idle, from being satisfied. Keep me alert.

   

  Maybe today I will open my book, Septuagenarian, and re-remember a life I have lived.  73 years-old.  I have no regrets.

   

  Sherry Quan Lee

  © September 6, 2021

• Book Tour Interview Poetic Book Tours

  Date: 2021.06.20 | Category: Interviews, Septuagenarian | Response: 0

  https://jeyranmain.com/2021/05/18/an-interview-with-sherry-quan-lee/#comments

  

• A LOVE POEM

  Date: 2021.04.14 | Category: Poetry, Septuagenarian | Response: 0

  Age Has Everything to Do With It

   

  Permission to write this poem, to weave this story.

  To hold the hand to touch the narrative.

   

  Not all relationships are volatile. Not this one.

  Age has everything to do with it.

   

  They meet for the first time in a park and it’s raining.

   

  She places a cross on the picnic bench, unsure

  if it’s necessary. Not knowing she is protected

  by organic food and lack of devilish intent.

   

  If needed, there is an umbrella; but truth weathers

  gray skies and intuition.

   

  They break bread and sip jasmine tea. This is love,
  or so she reckoned, not just another walk in the woods.

   

  copyright Sherry Quan Lee; from Septuagenarian: love is what happens when I die

• SELF-INTERVIEW: SWAN SONG. SEPTUAGENARIAN

  Date: 2021.02.24 | Category: Assignments, Interviews, Septuagenarian, Words of Wisdom | Response: 0

  SELF-INTERVIEW: SWAN SONG. SEPTUAGENARIAN

   

  1. You say your most recent book, Septuagenarian, is your swan song, what do you mean by that?

  Septuagenarian is the last book I will write. Friends ask me why and I respond
  “I am tired.” My focus has always been to discover who I am and why, while hoping to open up a space for dialoging about identity. I’m ready to engage in larger conversations, conversations one can’t have until we know who we are. That said, I am a one-on-one extrovert, not comfortable engaging in large crowds of public spaces.

  Early on in my writing career, I attended many local readings, hoping to support and engage with local writers, especially writers of color; but, in my later years I became more isolated. Maybe it has something to do with age, but mostly I think a change in location, moving away from the Twin Cities, was a detriment. The more isolated I became, the more I became a social recluse. And, although I’ve always been an introvert in larger gatherings and public spaces, the pandemic drew me inward even more. I don’t “Zoom” and I don’t want to (never say never), although I am getting comfortable with viewing the online options which are opportunities to see Twin Cities and national artists who are so generous with their time and talent in the comfort of my condo.

  2. Of all your books, which do you like the best?

  Thanks for asking that question. I actually like best the book I didn’t write, but edited, How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse. It was an opportunity to work with twenty-four writers in the mix from across the country and here at home who had stories about their experiences as writers that needed to be told . I also think it gained the most attention of all my books. It is being used in college classrooms and included in Poets and Writers Best Books for Writers.

  https://www.pw.org/bestbooks/how_dare_we_write_a_multicultural_creative_writing_discourse)

  Also, And You Can Love me a story for everyone who loves someone with ASD is a book close to my heart because it’s based on my observation of and experience with my grandson who was diagnosed with autism at the age of 3 ½.

  The process from the beginning was a learning experience. I took a picture book class from Alison McGhee, international known best-selling author,  to learn what is involved in picture book writing. I, then, worked with two younger artists who also had no previous experience with picture books.

  To see my grandson, now a teenager, page through his book is my greatest reward.

  3. What have you left out of your most recent book and why?

  I can’t stop thinking about what poems I didn’t write. I have to admit that three or four years ago the book started out with just fifteen poems because I was submitting them for a competition-the first year poetry, then prose, then poetry again. Not a winner, I prevailed by, I admit,  padding the manuscript with previously published poems, and asking my publisher if he would be interested in my swan song. Which, by the way, became more focused when a discussion about the separation of Black families led to me being asked to write about it, to write about how separation has been prevalent in our/my family.

  To answer the question, I keep thinking of things I left out or could have explored in more depth, but mainly I left out the physical (including sexual) aspects of aging. I was able to add two lines into an existing poem, but the topic deserves so much more.

  4. If you could have chosen a different career, other than writer, what would that have been?

  That’s an intriguing question. I seldom think of  myself as “writer” as a career. Writing and teaching writing were accidents of a sort. I was working for an independent study program where men and, particularly, women were studying for graduate degrees while being in the work force full time and many raising families. I wondered if I could do it. I quit my job before knowing if I had been admitted to a graduate program, not thinking forward much at all.

  I wanted a graduate degree just to prove to myself I was smart enough to earn one. I chose writing because that’s the only program I thought I was qualified for even though I wasn’t. Despite, apparently, hesitancy on the Committee’s part, I was admitted and the rest of the story is too lengthy to divulge here.

   After graduation a series of community connections provided opportunities to teach, and in 2005 a special connection with a friend led me to my publisher, Loving Healing Modern History Press, who has been loyal to me, to my writing ever since.

  Back to the question. I wanted to be an elementary school teacher, but when I was required to learn the “new math” I dropped out of college, only to return on again off again until I earned a four-year degree twenty years later.

  5. What will you do now?

  Now, at seventy-three, my first priority is to stay healthy, to eat well and exercise. But I will continue to work with other writers, to try to give back the support and encouragement my mentors offered to me. Maybe I will become a more consistent blogger and post future writing to my blog site or FB writer’s page. blog.sherryquanlee

  I hope to have an audience for my books, but I have little to no interest in book tours or public appearances. Although, if the Pandemic ever subsides, I would graciously accept opportunities to read at local community sites such as Moon Palace Books or East Side Library.

  I think it’s time for me to enjoy life now that I have forgiven myself of previous (and still working on) addictive/compulsive  behaviors. To reign in some of my I know I am right  pronouncements and listen more intently and less reactively, and to forgive abundantly (except those things I believe aren’t forgivable).

  6. What disappoints you the most about being a writer?

  Instead of disappointment I’d rather concern myself with gratitude, with the ongoing progression of BIOPC writers gaining visibility and recognition. That said, there’s a long way to go, especially when organizations make token efforts to be diverse by including BIPOC writers, but don’t respect their monetary worth; but applause for those who do.

  7. What is your weakest skill as a writer?

  Grammar and punctuation.

  8. What is your best skill as a writer?

  Honesty. Fearlessness; writing despite of/because of fear.

  9. What have been your biggest road blocks to becoming a writer?

  Critics:  professors that say “writing about race isn’t trendy.” Lack of professors of color in the academy. Lack of white professors who embrace “teaching moments;” and white professors who might know the needs of students of color, but ignore them.

  A lack of self-esteem.

  I’m not a disciplined writer. I write reactively. I write when a political or personal event, or a story or a poem, or a movie triggers me to react.

  10. What advice would you give to other aspiring writers?

  Follow your heart, but more importantly follow your gut (and seriously, not just metaphorically). Don’t listen to, or at least ignore the critics who shame—actually, you will ignore them if you are following your heart and your gut. Seek out mentors, not just for the craft of writing, but for inspiration and motivation. I always told my students it’s who you know, but I meant that as a relationship of mutual respect and trust and friendship-not greed.

  WRITING EXERCISE

  I often asked my students to interview themselves as a creative project. I think it’s a way for aspiring writers to contemplate who they are as writer, what’s important to them as a writer, and where they are on their journey toward their goals.

  PREVIOUS INTERVIEWS CAN BE FOUND AT:

  https://turtleroad.org/2019/10/03/sherry-quan-lee-daring-to-nurture-untold-stories/

   

  https://www.midwestmixed.com/post/midwest-mixed-community-spotlight-sherry-quan-lee

   

  https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/76349157.pdf

   

  https://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?id=41176