For me, Sunday is almost always a day of work.  Today I found it quite soulful to scrub floors, clean my ice box, vacuum and dust, wash clothes—all the things that help me relax and get ready for another work week.  But, as often is the case, by Sunday evening I remember that I am a writer.  And by Sunday evening I wonder why it takes so much stressful energy fighting off being alone, followed by a surge of activity, before I can actually sit down to write.

My friend, who I also consider my mentor, has given me assignments.  She told me to write stories. The stories have to be two pages, nothing longer.  Also, I was told not to revise, not until I have a dozen or more short stories. She gives me prompts.  The first assignment was to write a story that begins at the end.  The second  assignment was to write a story about a secret.  I have given myself two rules.  One, the stories have to be written in third person in hopes to move away from the personal (I am not worried about admonishments as to whether I have written fiction or nonfiction, my stories are drafts and who is to know, including me, if they are true or not). Two, the stories have to be about love.  I challenge you to also accept this assignment.

SECRETS

The secret belonged to her mother.  She, the youngest sibling, did not own it.  She, sixty years old/young, had no secrets.  Never had any secrets.  Her mother was dead.  She died still white as an angel’s frock.  Perhaps, unafraid at last.  Her mother had become what she said she was, White.    Even dead, she was White and she had told her children, no funeral.  No funeral, they assumed, because Mother didn’t want her relatives to mourn her, or damn her to hell.    Her children promised cremation; no confession of sins, no truth telling.  Dead or not, the color black was not allowed.

The residents of her mother’s nursing home celebrated each death with story.  Whether they knew or liked each other before death, whether they sat together at meals or played Scrabble together on Thursday afternoons fighting over the legitimacy of a word, whether they said hello to each other every day or never, whether the sat in their wheelchairs in the TV room watching “Days of Our Lives”– at the gathering to celebrate yet another passing, they never said anything ugly, not even about her mother.  They celebrated her mother’s passing with stories, some very funny.  Some, the daughters asked themselves, “could this me my mother they are talking about?”  It was important to conjure up goodness and humor after yet another resident was hurried off in an ambulance, not to return.  No one told her mother’s secret at the celebration, they probably didn’t know, though some might have guessed.   There were no stories linked to race or class.

The daughter she was weary.  How much time, and energy, and anger, and defiance, and information, and confrontation, and how many poems, and how many stories, how many lost friends, how many lost lovers, how much loneliness did it take for her to uncover and shed her mother’s lies.  What is the cost of truth?  Was her angst and sorrow and loneliness any more than what her mother endured by not telling the truth? 

Neither were right or wrong.  We do what we do because we have to.  We do it with compassion.  We do it for love.

The mother:  slot machines, romance novels, garage sales, peanut butter kisses, chastity, shame; prayer.

The daughter:  dark chocolates, poetry, slot machines, thrift stores, and romantic liaisons; eventually, no guilt and no shame; prayer.

She would not let her mother’s family disappear, though for years they were hidden in dark shadows.  She gave them life with her words, though she had much to imagine.  Her mother read her book Chinese Blackbird, and said in a whisper “we are proud.”  

Was she proud, or perhaps angry, perhaps sad, that the only way to keep her daughters’ from race riots and dark men was to prep them as exotic Asian girls, praying for them to marry the White Lieutenant; a safety net, what Bloody Mary demanded for Liat?  Her prayers were mighty strong.  Four daughters, eventually 13 ex-lieutenant husbands.   The youngest was  brave, “be gone” she said.  But often she wondered, “what if.” 

At sixty, the youngest daughter is weary and lonely.  Is martyrdom worth the isolation?  Are political allies true friends or lovers?  Why did she need to expose her mother’s secret?  Why did invisibility scourge her?  Did she know she had a secret of her own?

The daughter of the mother who passed for White wasn’t as Negro or Chinese as her birth certificate proclaimed.  Culturally, she was White.  Scandinavian neighborhood.  Norwegians and Swedes.  Lutheran Church.  Hot dish.  Dick and Jane. Wonder Bread.  White picket fences.

At sixty, she is restless.  She still wants the apple pie, the American Dream—this is her secret.  Perhaps being a grandmother she wants her world to be smaller, kinder, without labels, without definition.  No trying to save the world, no trying to control.  Just to survive each day; sometimes with joy.  With a heart full of love.

Loving her children and her grandchildren she knows:  that her mother’s secret, and her secret, are not so very different.

Sherry Quan Lee

August 16, 2010

Admittedly, minor revisions, Sunday, August 22, 2010

Counting down, two more days of a one week vacation.  I had a to do list.  One constructed from a mental can’t do list.  Can’t go to Las Vegas to see the only friend I’ve known since grade school.  Annie’s mother, now in her late 80’s, remembers in vivid details who we were as young girls.  Can’t go to Chicago, too many people to see and places to enjoy, too long a drive.  Can’t do anything that calls for an outlay of money.  But just to have a week to myself is a blessing and I wanted to use every second to do something.  Call it crazy, but as the saying goes, a girl just wants to have fun.

So many possibilities.  Not everything is expensive.  Not everything is relaxing either.  I was already wound like a top with expectations, with hope. But faith isn’t always about getting what you want.  The Secret says ask for money and you will get it.  Doesn’t always work, especially at a casino.   Imagine money in the mail.  Funny.  Instead I imagined I had money that I didn’t, enough to carry me through one week of simple pleasures. 

I made a list.  The Franconia Sculpture Park (http://franconia.org/blog/).  How many times had I seen from the road, giant sculptures that drew me to them?  I thought it was someone’s backyard art studio.  I wanted to witness the iron pour that was going to take place on Saturday from 5 p.m. to midnight.  I wanted to visit the Minneapolis Public Library.  I wanted to spend time with my grandson, Ethan.  I wanted to be by water. I wanted to go to a county fair. I wanted to go for a motorcycle ride.  I wanted to paint my office, the only room that hadn’t yet been painted, though I had been in my condo for a year.  The most important room.  My writing room.

Things didn’t start out well.  I didn’t want to fly solo.  Who could I count on to play with me.  I felt like that little girl who hid inside the doorway at her grade school instead of joining the other kids at recess, afraid no one would play with me.  I felt like that gangly teenage girl who went to dances, but clung to the wall afraid no one would ask me to dance, even more afraid someone would ask me.  I felt like that adult woman who knew many people, but didn’t have a best friend.  Friday, 4 p.m., the beginning of a vacation I had looked forward to for months, I was alone, nothing to do and no one to do it with.  I obsessed about what I would do for the next seven days.  What will I have I tell my colleagues back at work when they ask, “what did you do on your summer vacation”—that essay we were always asked as children to write when we returned to school in the fall.

Today is day six.  Saturday.  I hadn’t include writing on my list, though I did want to spend some time working on a signature workshop that would be a collaborative effort with my friend Lori, to always be prepared to teach whenever, wherever an opportunity existed.  This morning I couldn’t sleep.  6 a.m.   I want to write.  I haven’t written a blog entry in months.  I wanted to write.  If only I had seven more days I could probably write a book.  Why does it take me so long to clear my head, to make way for words, for thoughts, for story?  Why does it take so much living before I can write?  It just does.  It’s part of my process.

After I got over the first Friday night of my vacation with sadness and tears, and a Saturday that was dreadful only because at a casino I Iost the little money I didn’t have for my vacation—when dreams don’t come true, I can always count on one sibling or another to eat “buffet” and play the slots— by Saturday afternoon, I welcomed the company of my sister, the drive, the food, the noise, and the company of strangers—after I got over Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday (another casino trip with two sisters) I hunkered down, let go of control, and mercy me, things began to happen.

Funny how, if I pay attention, there are always signs that motivate me to write .   Signs like having breakfast with a friend, who just happened to be in town to develop a play, who told me to write—write a short story she said (even though I’ve never written one).  Signs like a Facebook video about loneliness (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs) .  Signs like a purple writing room.  Signs like opening a book, Turning Life into Fiction by Robin Hemley and opening to a page that suggests this writing exercise:

“We’ve all been to carnivals and fairs.  Write a memory of a fair or carnival in as much detail as you can.  Now make that the setting for a short story.  But don’t base the main character on yourself.  If other memories of other carnivals flood in, be sure to include them.”

Funny that last night I went to the Washington County Fair.  My first county fair.  I am going to try to write a short story.  A short short story.  This is madness, but it’s my madness.  What do I know about short stories?  Most have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  I can do that.

COUNTY FAIR

She welcomed a Friday night with something to do.  Didn’t matter that pigs, and cows, and goats, and horses would be part of the evening.  There would also be corn dogs and corn on the cob and fresh squeezed lemonade.  And there would be music.  Rock and roll music by the Rockin’ Hollywoods.  What else could a lonely woman ask for?  Except a hand to hold, and a lover to jitterbug with.  Her ex-husband would have to do, and she was thankful this was one of the occasional nights he felt like doing something.

She only had a couple of hours to get ready, but her gray  roots were colored earlier in the week, and it didn’t take long to decide on the low cut t-shirt, tight fitting capris, and a pale blue, light-weight, hooded sweatshirt, bobby socks and tennis shoes.  She enjoyed summer because she enjoyed looking good and summer clothes were cute and sexy unlike bulky sweaters and snow boots.  Looking good made her feel alive, attractive, and desirable.  Even though her ex-husband could care less what she looked like, she dressed for him as much as she did for herself and one never knows who they will meet at a county fair.  And if she choreographed herself well, it wouldn’t matter about the love handles, she knew how to cover the midlife fat around her waist.  What waist?

They missed the senior special at the gate by two hours, but county fairs are affordable.  Six dollars each and they were on their way.  The smell of barnyard animals and greasy food filled the air, each smell distinct if you got close enough, overall a cacophony of disgusting and appealing.  Appealing was corn on the cob, pork chops on a stick, French fries, and beer.  They shared food.  A bite of his corn dog, a bite of her corn on the cob, a sip of beer by her, a sip of beer by him.  If any of those couples who weren’t talking to each other, not looking at each other, not liking each other much, you know the ones, if they were watching the woman and her ex-husband they would be envious, thinking they knew something about this couple that the couple didn’t know about themselves.

Although she and her ex-husband merely glanced at the animals from a distance, a peek over shoulders to see pale pink pigs racing, a glance into the barn with hundreds of black, brown, gold, white chickens, sadness at the camel being offered for rides, as well as the old, and forlorn horses walking slowly in a circle for children to ride—they were glad there were no takers—they took in every 4-H and FFA exhibit.  Enjoyed the art, inspecting drawings and paintintgs and photographs by children and seniors.  Examined cookware, received free back massages, talked to politicians.  Ate more corn dogs.  Roamed the midway, daring each other to enter the cave of horrors or ride any of the death defying rides.  They were comfortable with each other, chatted, and laughed.

Rock and roll music was something they both loved.   The show started at 8 p.m.  They headed toward the bleachers.  Although they didn’t join the throng of dancers in front of the band, after a few songs they were off their bony butts, clapping and gyrating, each in their separate reverie of what ifs and why nots.  But she has always said jitterbug, and he always insisted on the Lindy.  She was ready to dance and party all night, he was ready to go home at 10:30. 

Settled in bed by midnight with a book, she thought about the man who had sat across from her and her ex-husband in the bleachers.  The man who sat an arms length from the woman he was with.  They didn’t look at each other, talk to each other, they didn’t hold hands.  He was handsome.  Thick, casually styled gray hair.  Tall.  Buff.  Dressed in khaki shorts and a black short sleeve shirt. She knew this man.  Loved him for the six months they had dated without ever telling him, instead told him goodbye.  Lying in bed, her book covering her breasts, she shivered.  She felt his sadness.  And hers.

It is 9 a.m.  Saturday.  Six days into my vacation.  I watched the fourth and fifth season of 24.  I went to Treasure Island Casino one day, Mystic Lake the next.  I have been to the beach, and the zoo, and a county fair. I had my hair colored and cut.  I spent three days with my grandson, Ethan and his dad, my son, and his wife.  I made sloppy joes and tater tots. I made string bean stir fry.  I met a friend for breakfast, we went to a bookstore, I bought a book (Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi) and have read half of it.  My writing room is painted purple.  This afternoon I am going to a poetry reading, the first reading I’ve been to in over a year.  I have written my first short story/my first blog entry in months.  But, I have yet to go on a motorcycle ride, or at least  have a cup of coffee with a certain someone, who happens to own a motorcycle. 

I received a royalty check in the mail.  It wasn’t much, but this time it wasn’t in the red.

As always, this blog entry is “come as you are”— no rewrites, no revisions, no apologies for words misused, mix up of tenses, typos, or what could have been.  I’ve written something and that, for now, is enough.

As always,

Sherry

August 7, 2010

As always,

Sherry

What Love Isn’t

Sometimes I wonder if the good guys are any better than the bad guys I mean the good guys who a woman thinks are good but surprise you just when you’re feeling comfortable, feeling safe, feeling loved and you think you know they won’t hurt you, they, the ones you think are gentle and kind and generous okay maybe not generous but the ones you trust with all your heart to know that you a woman hurts or have been hurt and you trust that they know that the history of  violation against women doesn’t go away but often gets hidden and if you’re a lucky woman the violence gets sheltered by the goodness of men and women who understand violence is not okay yet even the slip of someone’s tongue sends you spinning into anger into fear into running far far away from even the possibility that someone’s fear or rage or defense, even if it’s not against you, can hurt you or anyone and yes there are degrees of violence of attack of even hurting someone’s feelings but I have trouble distinguishing between a woman, or a man I may not even know being assaulted, beaten, raped, robbed, manipulated, controlled or myself if I am the intentioned victim because violence is violence and even contemplating violence to me is violence and sometimes I think I am careless in my righteous opinions but today I renounce any unease, any guilt, any second guessing myself because today I realize it is better to be safe than wonder what if….today I know angels have always been my muse, my protectors, and the possibility of love isn’t worth the risk of the repercussions of hate, and that not being loved isn’t necessarily death, but death is not loving; but loving doesn’t mean allowing myself to be someone else’s punching bag nor does it mean I sit back and shut up and comfort you in my arms as you violently, in thought or deed, revenge an unjust world while I passively repress my discomfort.  I am not ashamed of my many attempts to be loved, neither am I ashamed of running from what I hoped and thought was love but wasn’t and there I go again judging, saying I know what love is or isn’t but I do know what it isn’t.   Today I feel, though the earth is trembling, I feel a gentleness of spirit, a calm resolve, I feel like praying.

Sherry Quan Lee

June 13, 2010

Nothing like a four day weekend to let off steam, to entertain some of life’s diversions in a whirlwind of emotion, and then, satiated, empty, still have a few hours to do what it is you want to do, to write, without actually needing to, but because you’ve created a space, although somewhat obsessively and what some may call dysfunctional (shopping, eating, gambling, drinking, smoking—no I’m not confessing to any or all of these), to allow creativity a place to sing.  Now there’s nothing like singing, except maybe dancing, even if one, such as myself, can’t sing or dance—well, can’t sing or dance well—, there’s nothing like singing or dancing to be happy (and there’s nothing like not singing or dancing, especially when one desires to sing and dance, to not be happy).

I’m in the heart of soulful creativity. Cutting and pasting, sorting through images and words, treasure mapping.  (Sipping champagne and eating chocolates.)  Alone.  Not where I want to be but enjoying every quiet moment being.  Then, a muse spoke, a little too loudly. I had to listen.  The muse said, what your friend said about having to work twice as hard, be twice as good—you know the story, your mom told you the story—the muse said it’s a myth, it’s trash talkin’, it’s double jeopardy.  The muse said, write that poem.  I did.

Note:   recently at a writing retreat I wrote a poem so abstract, so against, be specific.  Addiction is the Language of Love.  Isn’t it the details that allow readers to connect even if their stories are different?  A former student recently recited to me what she said I taught her about concrete and abstract images and that a rug is a rug, keep it simple.  I was horrified that she might not have understood or I might not have explained that a shag rug is more specific than rug or that a shrill scream is more than anger, yet it’s not just adjectives I want to address, but that one noun can be more specific than another, more descriptive, and that the important thing is to remember to give witness to the sight, the smells, the sounds, etc. of the story.  I digress. 

I don’t abide by rules.  I take words out of context.  I challenge the norm.  Why not? (Okay, sometimes I just don’t know better.)  Students do love me for “no rules” —most not hearing there is “craft” to think about, but I want them to think about what works for them, what is their voice, who is their audience, what is their story.   I digress.

Today, Sunday, has been a respite from anxiety.  No, the reasons I have been anxious of late (like the last year or two or three) have not disappeared, but Friday and Saturday the frenzy of release by shopping, by eating, by gambling, by other things has exhausted me.  I am worn down enough to be contemplative.  I thought about what my friend said recently, that we have to be better, twice as good and this phenomenon of working so very hard to be equal because we might have a chronic illness or we might be a Chinese Black woman who grew up white, or, or, or….and I thought, no, this is a myth.  We must change this story.  Yes, I have always tried to live it, being better just to be good.  But, I wrote yet another abstract poem, It’s not true, because I could because I have  the luxury of a four day weekend to exhaust my anxiety so I can think clearer and so I can be creative and so I can make up my own rules, and create my own myths.

Sherry Quan Lee

May 30, 2010

Aha!  I did not write this post over my lunch hour!  However, for qualification, and in defensive of error or sloppiness, as always, this posting is basically a first draft, as are the poems.  This posting is also a surprise, to me, that I have just written something.  Woo hoo, as my friend Lori would say!

It’ not true

            (to all of us who live the myth)

we don’t have to be better

whose far fetched idea came tumbling came

pouring into our determination

to survive prejudice; doesn’t everyone

have truths to hide? why does arrogance

rule?  a privileged view, not mine, secrets

don’t come with windows

pride is not the same as truth, if humility

was respected no one

would have to hide or seek revenge and

someone’s views would just be views

and you and I could stop dancing

on each other’s feet; no-never-mind

I’m just going to be who I am and

stop working twice as hard to be equal

to you who could never dance like me

even if you tried twice as hard without

a view.

Sherry Quan Lee

May 30, 2010

Addiction is the language of love

“There was a woman here who was loved.”—Joy Harjo

of lovers.  I am lover, I am addiction, I am loved.

Sorrow is displaced by obsession, who is to say

what a word means or the extent of it.  It is my

story I am telling.  I could die from the loneliness / the

anger and I have or I can live with the gifts I give myself.

I am a woman who tolerates diversity, no two lovers

are alike, though they are all expensive.  I don’t let

the lovers overwhelm me, a lost paycheck a small price

to pay for salvation.  The more I am addict the more I am

love.  Lovers, I will not name you; you are my secret

love.

Sherry Quan Lee

April 24, 2010

Why haven’t I written a blog entry since

February 23, 2010?

1. I’ve been reading.  All the Mary Janice Davidson, “Undead” books.
2. I’ve been reading.  Books for a workshop I participated in.
3. I’ve been reading.  Books.
4. I didn’t receive the fellowship I applied for.
5. I’ve been eating.
6. I’ve been washing clothes.
7. I’ve been going to garage sales.
8. I haven’t been going to the casino.
9. My allergies make my eyes water.
10. My allergies make me sneeze.
11. Too much rain.  Too cold.
12. Too much wine.
13. Not enough wine.
14. Love:  what do I know about it?
15. I’ve been watching movies.
16. I’ve been watching television.
17. I’ve been watching American Idol.  I’ve been watching Dancing with the Stars.
18. I have high blood pressure.
19. I have high cholesterol.
20. My good friend lives 45 miles from my house.
21. I have four grandsons; two grandsons are two years old.
22. Facebook.
23. I can’t write while I’m on the treadmill.
24. I like to feel guilty.
25. The Goodwill has blue or red or green or yellow tag sales.
26. I have an Ash tree in front of my house.
27. I’m trying to stop smoking.
28. I went shopping in Des Moines.
29. I’ve been washing my hair.
30. I can’t write and dance at the same time.
31. I haven’t been dancing.
32. I moved to the suburbs.
33. I spilled black shoe polish on my carpet.
34. I have too many dishes.
35. Lori and I revised “Chinese Black White Women Got the Beat” and performed it for the fifth time.
36. I went to a Phil Vassar concert.
37. A new roof.
38. New siding.
39. Condo insurance went up.
40. Can’t sleep.
41. I have nothing to say.
42. I talk to myself.
43. I don’t know what to write about.
44. I wrote, revised, and submitted a poem to an upcoming anthology.
45. E-mail.
46. Waiting for the phone to ring.
47. I have to get away from my work computer at lunch time.
48. I don’t have a laptop computer.
49. Weekends are too short.
50. Because.

If you haven’t been writing, ask yourself why?  Send me your list.

Sherry Quan Lee

Sunday, May 16, 2010,  10:26 p.m.

Why do we write?  Or, if you’re thinking about writing, what blessings may blossom from your words? (I like to think of flowers this time of year.  I received a gift of rose s on Valentine’s Day.  They are now wilted and need to be discarded.  My colleague, though, has pastel tulips in her office where I can occasionally see them, and utter, ahhhhhhhhh.  This is Minnesota and the prospect of spring is certainly on my mind.)

How can we conjure the prospect of mysterious and perhaps magical happenstance (sometimes I use words I don’t know out of spite for the time someone shamed me for using a particular word wrong, in hopes I might be right this time) because we are writers?  For me, writing has brought me family, and friends, and a whole lot of lovin’—okay, I’m still “Imagining Love”—the lover and the lovin’ not yet a combo, but love is in the air (funny how many clichés are associated with spring).

I’m struggling here to get started.  Sometimes a writer has to write a whole lot of pages before clarity rears its beautiful face.  As I ramble along before I get to the aha! you will understand what I mean by this.  There’s so much I want to say right now.  I want to talk about the recent workshop I taught with Lori, but I also want to talk about a relative I didn’t know I had, who found me by Googling me, having gotten my name from her mother, who happened to have my first chap book, A LITTLE MIXED UP, published by Guild Press in the early 80’s.  (Another aside, did you know many of those little chap books published just a couple of decades ago, can be found online for big bucks! ?  Amazing!  And wonderful.  All those out of print works of art, rediscovered and sold online by speculators. )

I want to talk about beyond writing, if that makes any sense.  I earned an MFA in Creative Writing just to prove I was smart enough to get an education.  I was, though it was hard work because I didn’t really have the education I needed to continue to advance my education.  In other words, I was brought up in a family of five, on welfare and silence (more than I want to get into here).  I didn’t understand about class or race or gender when I was growing up, but looking back I know how much all of that stuff played a part in who I am today.  Not only did I not know how to eat steak, so the first time a date took me out for a steak dinner, part of the steak went flying as I tried to manipulate it with my knife and fork, but I didn’t know words, or the few I did know I didn’t know how to manipulate them to show I was from a different “class” than I was, but even if I had, can you really upgrade from the class you were born in (another discussion entirely).

I believe everyone should write and can.  And I believe writing should be shared.  Sharing is easy today in today’s world of the internet:  social networks, Google, Web sites, instant messaging, etc. (I say etc. because truly I am not Web savvy and it may be another lifetime before I have any desire to be a computer geek).  But first, before the internet, I started sharing my work in small group writing workshops.  This built small communities of writers.  Each of us writers belonged to other communities.  Friendships and networking happened.  Eventually I taught my own workshops.  Friendships and networking happened.  My first workshop was taught in my neighborhood coffee shop.  No students had enrolled, so I became super salesperson before I became teacher.  The class eventually consisted of a husband, close friends, and others I had never met.  Of those participants, I am still in contact with several of them, even the husband who became an ex-husband (not  an ex because of the workshop).  I became mentor to a couple of the participants.  Lori was one of the participants who I reconnected with a few years after the workshop . We now collaborate, performing our work and teaching.  What I’m trying to say here is that writing is more than (okay can be more than) writing.

Because I have been writing since the early 80’s and have had some poems published here and there, I have a Web site and I have this blog site and I’m on other sites and sometimes there may be an announcement or a book review here or there that lands on the internet.    I’m saying, you can Google me (I certainly have) and if you want to connect with me in cyber space, you probably can.  In fact, because of the internet a cousin found me, and recently a second cousin who lives in Texas found me because of my first little chapbook, and Googling my name on the internet.  This is what I’m trying to say.  I don’t confess to being the best writer in the world, my last royalty check was in the negative (that will change as soon as I retire and have time to market my books, really Victor, I promise). But,  I write about identity because there is no one in the world like me, just as there is no one in the world like you.  We have our own identity, our own stories.  And guess what, if we take the process of writing beyond the process of writing and enter the process of after the writing someone might notice.  Someone might notice (don’t hold your breath for million dollar book deal or a world book tour), but someone might notice you , who may be a long lost relative, or just someone interested in your writing,  or interested in writing in general–and that someone may become part of your life for awhile or for a lifetime.  That’s the aha! (Or they may want to hire you to be a writing mentor, or may want to subscribe to your blog, or they may want to register for one of your workshops.)

I write on my lunch hour, sometimes, like now.  I don’t have time to re-vision or revise (I do take time for a quick run through for typos, though I still might not catch them all, no apologies).  But, that’s okay.  You get a chance to witness a rough draft, lol (laugh out loud, I thought this meant lots of love and couldn’t figure out why a particular person sent me lol) and I get to send another something into the cyber world and hope that somehow somewhere my writing makes connections for me or for you.

Lori and I recently taught a writing workshop for women about women.  We hope to teach it in Mankato, MN this spring.  This workshop was for writers and nonwriters alike.  We honored the women or a particular woman in our lives.  We honored grandmothers, mothers, sisters, and friends.  We viewed maps, and photographs, and journals and other things to help conjure the women we wanted to write about, even those we didn’t’ know we wanted to write about. Connections were made. 

It’s about the writing, but it’s also about beyond the writing—after the writing.

Feel free to leave comments about your experiences with “after the writing.”

Sherry

2/23/2010lunchtime

“There was a woman here who was loved.” Joy Harjo

February 20, 2010
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

TRUE COLORS BOOKSTORE http://truecolorsbookstore.com/

SHARING OUR WOMEN’S STORIES: AN ORAL TRADITION will focus on stories of women in our lives. Stories of women in our families, and/or stories of women who have crossed our paths. Is there a particular woman you want to or need to write about?

This workshop is for writers and non-writers alike—everyone has stories!

Join Sherry Quan Lee and Lori Young-Williams for a lively and thought-provoking day of writing (letters, poems, and/or short narratives). We will use photos, maps, memorabilia, and history books. We will read stories by other women, as well as our own—stories recalled from great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts, and girlfriends.

This will be an engaging day of story sharing –written / visual / oral!!!

Cost for workshop: $40.00 plus a donation to True Colors bookstore of a used book or dvd. Please bring cash or check payment to the workshop. To register, e-mail Lori at youngwms@yahoo.com. Workshop limited to twelve participants.

Lori Young-Williams is a 41year old prose poet born in St. Paul. She comes from a working class family that believes in laughter, crying, and praying when times are good, bad or otherwise. Lori has one brother, one sister, and another sister who passed away when she was 14. She received her degree in Human Relationships with an emphasis in
family relationships at the University of Minnesota, 1992. Lori works a 9-5 job in Human Resources and Finance, but her passion is her writing. Most of her poetry is about her family—family relationships and how they impact her life. She has been published in Interrace magazine, the Turtle River Press, the National Library of Poetry, Quill Books, Dust & Fire and other anthologies. Also, she has self- published two chapbooks. She has read in various bookstores, coffee shops, and spoken word events in the Twin Cities. Lori recently was accepted as a participant for the Givens Black Writers Retreat, with
Sonja Sanchez and Carolyn Holbrook. She is currently working on her Master’s Thesis through the Master of Liberal Studies program at the University of Minnesota. She has studied with Rose Brewer, Carolyn Holbrook, Sherry Quan Lee, and others.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/leexx065/writingmulticulturalidentity/

Sherry Quan Lee approaches writing as a community resource and as culturally based art of an ordinary everyday practical aesthetic. Quan Lee taught Creative Writing at Metropolitan State University for ten years, and continues to teach community workshops such as Stories that Save Lives, and Bookmaking. Currently she is a Program Associate for the Split Rock Arts Program Summer Workshops and Seasonal Retreats at the University of Minnesota. She has done consulting for SASE: The Write Place, a community based literary organization. She was a selected participant for the Loft Literary Center’s Asian Pacific Inroads Program, and in 2000 she was the mentor for that program. She was a selected participant for the Asian American Renaissance’s (AAR) Writers’ Block Program to mentor youth. She edited several of AAR’s annual journals, and curated AAR cabarets. Quan Lee was a selected participant for the first Cave Canem retreat for Black Poets in Esopus, New York. She earned an AA degree at North Hennepin Community College (has since been honored as a Distinguished Alumni), and a BA and MFA at the University of Minnesota. Quan Lee has edited Body of Stories, the fifth journal of the Asian American Renaissance, and Spirits, Myths and Dreams: Stories in Transit, the fourth journal of the Asian American Renaissance; as well as, I Am Who You Fear I Am, poems by Deborah Kelly, (distributed by Kitchen Table Women of Color Press) Corn Songs, poems by Virginia Allery (Turtle Mountain Reservation), and Chromosomes and Genes: an interracial anthology, (Guild Press, 1980’s). Quan Lee is the author of A Little Mixed Up, Guild Press, 1982 (second printing), Chinese Blackbird, a memoir in verse, published 2002 by the Asian American Renaissance, republished 2008 by Loving Healing Press, and How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman’s life, Loving Healing Press, 2008. http://www.SherryQuanLee.com
http://www.blog.sherryquanlee.com

From Ernest,

. . . let me surprise you with my audio poem at a new site that hosts audio poems. Mine is from my second poetry book Two Candles. The link is http://thepoetspeak.com/. If you would like to get your audio poem posted, feel free to contact the editor.

Wishing you all well,

Ernest

Look for Minnesota writer Theresa Crushon in current issue of RECOVERING THE SELF!

Check it out! This is the site I almost wrote for, but I had a change of mind (as you know, I may have a lot to say, but I don’t get it down in writing to say it very often). When the contract came back postage due, I knew I had made the right decision! But, now, Bao has started writing for YourVoices–yes, he used to skateboard in my neighborhood/my front yard with my sons–that’s what he told me–memory fades!

Is it too late, am I too old to become a Spoken Word Artist? Yes and no. How to memorize my own words? I ask students to memorize a poem, they sigh. I used to say, when I memorize my poems, I will know I am a poet. I’ve been writing poetry since second grade. This month I will be of social security age. I have only memorized one five line poem of mine. It’s enough. No pressure.

But, I do admire Minnesota’s Spoken Word Artists; I do appreciate Bao Phi’s work as an artist, and an activist–keeping Asian American voices visible and heard (what’s the antonym for silent? seriously. visible and loud? this is why I don’t blog often. wordsmithing? i get caught up in language. what words am i supposed to know and understand and use correctly? a topic for another blog entry. lunch is over. extended actually. another time)

Sherry

http://www.startribune.com/yourvoices/80632997.html?elr=KArks47cQiUdcOy_9cP3DiU47cQUU

Happy Holidays everyone.

XXXXXXXXXXX

you asked me for a poem. A clever and brazen
request. It’s not so easy. Poems come and go. Fly
like rage into the night; pink elephants big and heavy,
sobering. How to write a show poem full of dance
and song. Happy is a place I know, though who would believe it?
Words run amok telling stories bound in anger; reactions.
I am safe inside a poem.
Outside, when the wind blows bullets, I hunker low
eat silence, not so brave. Today,
I ask forgiveness. Talk and write from a gentle heart,
my gut recovering slowly. Forgive me for not knowing
the devil in men sooner than later. But do you believe
in fate? The world spins so quickly. I was afraid
I would be left dying, pronounced imperfect, immoral.
If intuitively I could have recognized love’s imperfections,
instead of believing because someone says he loves you
he loves you. Some clichés are to be taken seriously actions
speak louder than words (this is not about you). To speak/action.
Not to speak/inaction. A poet needs words, has faith in words.
You have asked for a poem. Here it is. You have said tell me
so I understand. Thank you. So here it is. You, I have taken
slowly. Cautious. Devil and angel. I embrace you, trustworthy,
with wild enthusiasm. I don’t expect devil to harm, nor angel
to deceive. Still, I won’t imagine conclusions because
I am not seeking endings. In answer to your question, yes,
I believe in fate; I also believe in choice. Thank you
for the conversation, please, more. Curiosity
is the Christmas gift I give to both of us.

Sherry Quan Lee
Copyright, December 21, 2009