Perhaps these new poems can bring us pleasure despite the unprecedented disasters we’re experiencing. At this writing, the COVID-19 pandemic has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, the streets teem with racial justice reckonings, while the West Coast burns in a climate-change apocalypse! Alas, what can poetry possibly say about such destruction? And yet, poets write.
Regarding my process: formally and stylistically, I tend to write different kinds of poems simultaneously—from short, spare sequences to bluesy songs to wacky narratives. I do this purposely to keep the muse off-kilter, experimenting, searching for new solutions to old ideas. Or old solutions to new ideas. I combine Eastern and Western forms, using different muscles. I put disparate things together to see if they fly. And, as an old-world feminist, I always wax personal and political (apparently, I can’t help this compulsion).
Now, let me offer some notes to contextualize the poems a bit.
“The Girl Box Series”: I have been writing these “Girl Box” poems sporadically for several years. It’s my way of having a paranormal dialogue with the Serbian poet Vasko Popa (1922–1991). I argue that his Little Box poems were misogynist. His ghost argues that my “Girl Box” poems are misandrist. OK, his ghost is very smart and has a point. Please refer to both Charles Simic’s and Anne Pennington’s excellent translations of Popa’s poems.
“Little Girl Études”: I continue to write poems about the plight of women and children in our ruinous global situation. I keep space for them, who are arguably the most vulnerable people in the world. I wrote a first draft of the series while listening to Chopin’s études.
“Fruit Études”: In classical music, an étude or “study” is a short composition for a solo instrument and is often written as an exercise to challenge the skill of the player. Certainly, it is challenging to write short pieces about fruit. Especially fruit that utters social commentary. When I finish with fruit, I’ll move to vegetables.
“Turnip, an Autobiography”: I am writing a continuous sequence of revisionist folktales. Perhaps I’ll finish the book in the next ten thousand years.
The Poetry Foundation celebrated Marilyn Chin as the winner of the 2020 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize during the annual Pegasus Awards ceremony in September. Chin was recognized for outstanding lifetime achievement, alongside Saskia Hamilton as winner of the 2020 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism and Naomi Shihab Nye, whose tenure as Young People’s Poet Laureate has been extended. View a recording of the virtual awards ceremony here.
Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Portland, Oregon. She earned a BA in Chinese literature from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. A noted anthologist, translator, and educator, as well as a poet and novelist, Chin’s work distills her experiences as a feminist and Asian American woman. Her poetry is noted for its direct and often confrontational...