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Chinese Blackbird (Reflections of America) [Paperback]

Sherry Quan Lee (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)

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Book Description

Reflections of America June 25, 2008
Critical Acclaim for Sherry Quan Lee's Chinese Blackbird

"Quan Lee eloquently expresses how painful and confusing it can be to embrace the many complex identities that one body can contain. With evocative imagery and words that cut straight to the heart, Quan Lee details her lifelong struggles with both the vagaries and concreteness of race, class, gender and sexual identity. Her guilt and shame are palpable. But so too are her emotional and intellectual triumphs. Like a favorite sad song when we have been dumped by the love of our lives, this volume will be oddly comforting to anyone who has ever been overcome by that sorrow which seems insurmountable."
--Eden Torres, Assistant Professor Women's Studies, Chicano Studies, University of Minnesota

"It's been a long time since I've been treated to a voice so full of honesty about one's struggle to come to terms with her identity. Through elegant poetry, full of exquisite imagery and detail, Quan Lee takes the reader on her personal, transformative journey in which she explores how race, class, gender and sexual identity inform who she is. Along the way, she encounters rocks and boulders that would have stopped many of us. Instead, she turns them over and examines the creatures hiding in the darkness underneath, leaving no stone on her path unturned. Quan Lee is a courageous woman. She is one of my sheroes."
--Carolyn Holbrook, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, Founder and past Artistic/Executive Director of SASE: The Write Place

"In Chinese Blackbird, Sherry Quan Lee renders stories of her complex cultural heritage with the lyrical touch of a poet coming into self-possession. Through the generative power of language, Lee creates an inspirational and a multifarious self. This self blows breath unto the page and into the reader, who may have felt quiescent or invisible, often feeling forced to choose among various enriching worlds, until she experiences the truth that only good literature can unveil about the joys and struggles of defining oneself on one's terms."
--Pamela R. Fletcher, Associate Professor of English Co-Director of Critical Studies in Race and Ethnicity, College of St. Catherine

Learn more about the author at www.SherryQuanLee.com

Book #3 in the Reflections of History Series from Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com

Modern History Press is an imprint of Loving Healing Press

Product Details

  • Paperback: 100 pages
  • Publisher: Modern History Press (June 25, 2008)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1932690689
  • ISBN-13: 978-1932690682
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 x 0.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,431,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

SHERRY QUAN LEE, author of How to Write a Suicide Note, Loving Healing Press 2008, and Chinese Blackbird, Asian American Renaissance, 2002, reprinted 2008 by Loving Healing Press, approaches writing as a community resource and as culturally based art of an ordinary everyday practical aesthetic. She is a Distinguished Alumni of North Hennepin Community College. Currently, she is the Program Associate for the Split Rock Arts Program summer workshops and the Online Mentoring for Writers Program at the University of Minnesota where she also earned her MFA in Creative Writing. Recently retired from ten years of teaching Creative Writing at Metropolitan State University, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Quan Lee facilitates community workshops at Intermedia Arts, Minneapolis, MN, and elsewhere. She was a first year, 1996, participant of Cave Canem, a writing retreat for black poets.

 

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3.0 out of 5 stars Giving Birth to Our True Self, December 12, 2010
This review is from: Chinese Blackbird (Reflections of America) (Paperback)
Sherry Quan Lee's poetry is mainly focused on ethnic experience as an Asian/African-American living in America. Her poetry book "Chinese Blackbird" bears close similarity in theme and modes, to her other poetry book "How to Write a Suicide Note". One perceptible difference is that of tone. "How to Write a Suicide Note" sounded more poignant and exuding the feeling of ethnic discrimination and identity crisis to the extent of leading one to suicide attempts. But "Chinese Blackbird" sounds more involved in self-expression and story-telling. Some pieces in this collection are in fact written in prose with the poetic feel coming through loosely maintained rhythm.

After a very warm, inviting preface by David Mura, Sherry Quan Lee's very first line, "I'm pregnant with myself", speaks her inner urge of having another birth, a sort of inner rebirth by conscious choice. There come poems then which question the arbitrariness of blackness, the biases gearing the judgmental process, and the deceptive standards of identity (based mainly on skin color). Some of the questions are quite broad and would challenge the intellect as a whole: "Is it too late to break silence?" "Am I the woman I'm in love with?" There is enough in this collection to spark some meaningful discussions.

"Chinese Blackbird" also tells more about the author's family and her experience of family life as well as relationships. And at more than one place, it rejects men on different grounds. This is not to say that the poet sounds phobic of men without reason. But her interior self seems to express a greater trust of women, epitomized in the poem "Naming" where her tribute to her mother shows why she ultimately can trust a woman, and with good reason. Maybe, men would like to question her position, but they have to beat the poet's inner voice with stronger reason and at least equal poetic talent.

If "How to Write a Suicide Note" was an uplifting book standing for the value of life against adversity, "Chinese Blackbird" is a poetic picture of the strengths of one's interior and the possibility that one might find success with living by being true to one's inner self, even if it implies looking at one's face in the mirror with no social makeup on. These poems are important in addressing both personal and social aspects of life in a multi-ethnic society.

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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