Posts Tagged ‘Minnesota Author’

• Oh So Wild and Oh So Beautiful

  Date: 2018.12.27 | Category: The Art of Writing | Response: 0

  What’s it like to be seventy?  2018, for me, was a year of introspection.  Check out my thoughts on Midwest Mixed:

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

   

• Excerpt from How Dare We! Write

  Date: 2017.03.23 | Category: Writers Who Dare | Response: 0

  “The tinikling offers a visual explanation of how bilingual writing
  works. Like the agile dancing feet of a tinikling dancer, a bilingual
  writer’s mind is connected to her feet at all times, transferring and
  translating the beat of clapping bamboos from a hearing experience to
  a whole body experience. Living in a predominantly English-speaking
  culture means you cannot stop to think or even attempt to explain
  your actions and your meanings, or you will lose track of the dominant
  beat and find yourself caught in the thorns of misunderstanding. I can’t
  help but relate this to the spate of recent attacks on black bodies we
  have witnessed. There is never time to explain your black skin or your
  brown skin to someone intent on eradicating your black or brown
  body because he or she feels threatened by the mere sight of you. You
  have to keep dancing between the clapping bamboos of race
  perception. Those who tried, hands up or not, have ended in tragedy.
  Is this a far-fetched metaphor? If it is to you, you’ve never had to
  dance/write between bamboos.”–Marlina Gonzalez, How Dare We! Write

• Excerpt from How Dare We! Write

  Date: 2017.03.23 | Category: How Dare We! Write a multicultural creative writing discourse | Response: 0

  “I would add that many programs do not even offer courses dealing
  with race and writing as an elective. I didn’t know such a thing existed.
  Over the duration of my program, my writing became less race conscious
  instead of more. Sure everything thing I do and say leaves the
  mark of blackness behind. However, instead of drawing a circle around
  the mark, expanding it, aiming the camera directly at it, I placed
  translucent covering over it, not completely hiding race, but placing it
  in the background. Without knowing it, I was learning to write like a
  white woman because I must have believed that they knew what they
  were doing. They were award-winning authors. They were where I
  wanted to be. They were my teachers.”–Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, How Dare We! Write

• GIVE GRANDMA A KISS

  Date: 2015.07.30 | Category: Poetry, The Art of Writing | Response: 0

  Note: maybe it’s the heat (blessing of summer), but I just noticed my last post (be patient, I procrastinate, I don’t post often) was about this same poem! This one, again, a slightly different version.

  It’s been an amazing summer! Beginning with participating in a class taught by Alison McGhee at Metro State! The class motivated me to get back to poetry. One of the poems I wrote about my grandson Ethan is an honorable mention in the Goodreads monthly poetry contest (this is the first time I’ve submitted anything-wow, what an honor). I haven’t written anything since the class, but as writers we shouldn’t be hard on ourselves, the writing will happen when we/or it is ready-but, sometimes we need to be among other writers to help make that happen.

  Give Grandma a Kiss
  for Ethan, my nonverbal, autistic grandson

  I always wear mauve lipstick, give
  Grandma a kiss—

  He leans in, all seven years of him, knowing
  more than I know after
  67 years of thousands of kisses.

  He leans in, without hesitation. I
  mark his brown forehead with a temporary
  tattoo. My kiss his kiss. Like no kiss
  a man has given me. Words

  not necessary language. His way
  of love, spontaneous, silent

  a heart organic, knowing what it is
  to hold breath a millisecond; a mime
  not needing to be understood.

  But Grandma wants to see underneath
  the innocence, to reach what she lost
  or never experienced.

  Later, my daughter-in-law, the nurse,
  questions what she thinks is a scratch;
  how has he hurt himself this time?

  The hurt is mine; the gift unwrapped,
  visible, transparent.

  https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/17029183-please-vote-for-the-august-2015-goodreads-newsletter-finalists