Each month, the San Francisco Public Library Web site, www.sfpl.org, features selected poems reflecting the theme of War and Peace on Our Streets.
To submit a poem or for more information about the project, see our News Release.
October Featured Poet: Nellie Wong
Oakland bom, Nellie Wong is the author of three collections of poetry with a fourth
book, BROAD SHOULDERS awaiting publication. Two of her poems are enshrined in
San Francisco Municipal Railway public sites. She is co-featured in the documentary
film, “Mitsuye & Nellie, Asian American Poets,” by Allie Light and living Saraf, and has
contributed her poems and essays to over 200 publications. Her work has been translated
into Spanish, Chinese, French and Italian. She has won awards from the San Francisco
Women's Foundation, Asian American Faculty and Staff Association of UC Santa
Barbara and Kearny Street Workshop. She has taught Women Studies at the University
of Minnesota, Minneapolis/St. Paul and poetry writing at Mills College in Oakland. Now
retired, Wong worked for the majority of her life as a secretary and administrative assistant.
List of Books that I Am Reading:
- BERTOLT BRECHT Poems 1918-1956, by Bertolt Brecht
Edited by John Willett and Ralph Manheim with the cooperation of Erich Fried
- PATERSON LITERARY REVIEW 32, Edited by Maria Mazziotti Gillan
- REVOLUTIONARY MEMORY Recovering the Poetry of the American Left by Cary Nelson
- EAST OF EDEN, by John Steinbeck
PRAISE SONG FOR A DEAD GIRL
by Nellie Wong
For a girl of mixed race found strangled to death
and stuffed into a duffle bag behind Carrow's Restaurant,
Castro Valley, California, on May 1, 2003
On International Workers' Holiday, workers at Carrow's Restaurant
found you, strangled and stuffed into a duffle bag, dumped
behind the restaurant. On this May Day, as millions
of working people celebrated the world over, you gave
your last breath. You were 13, maybe 15, or 17, of mixed race.
Part Black, part white, part Asian, part Latina,
part Native American, or all of the above,
no one will ever know. No one has claimed you.
no mother or father, no uncle or aunt, not even
a loving grandmother, a teacher, a next-door neighbor.
What did you do, dear sister, except try to live, to study
Algebra, U.S. History, or even Computer Science,
to swim or play tennis, to while away hours
listening to Eminem, Cristina Aguilera, Nelly.
Perhaps you loved to dance, played jigsaw puzzles,
babysat, tried pot, waited on tables, peddled
hand-made necklaces of rhinestone
on Market Street in San Francisco.
Perhaps you ran away from home to escape abuse,
arriving in California, to lose yourself, to find
a new identity.
Now a man, a gardener with a teenaged daughter,
has come forth to honor you, to bury you. An anonymous donor
is paying for your burial clothes. And at your memorial
services this hot July, your newfound friends will say
farewell to you, a girl with no name, who simply lived
until a pair of enraged hands decided your demise.
This praise song is for you, a girl
who must have laughed, cried and fought, home
at last amid the care and love of strangers and workers.
© 2003 Nellie Wong
July 4, 2003
