The Asian Reporter's
BOOK REVIEWS

By Janet S. Wong

With decorations by the author

McElderry Books, 1996

Hardcover, 42 pages, $15.95

By Josephine Bridges

Divided into three sections — "Korean Poems," "Chinese Poems," and "American Poems" — A Suitcase of Seaweed is stuffed to capacity with poetry with unlikely titles such as "Burial" (it’s about kimchi), "Leeches," "Money Order," and "Beat." The sections begin with background on the author’s Korean mother, Chinese father, and American self, and these short prose pieces are just as delicious as Janet Wong’s poetry.

The author has visited Korea only once, when she was four, but she "learned to speak enough Korean to order ice cream at the train station. It was the best ice cream I have eaten in my whole life."

The tastes of chili peppers, garlic, cabbage, dried squid, beef bone soup, persimmons, and of course seaweed are all here. Janet Wong’s imagery is always a little startling, and this collection is no exception. In "Koreatown" she likens this region’s expansion to

… an amoeba, engulfing

whole streets each week —

Janet Wong’s GongGong — "one Cantonese word for grandfather" — and grandmother continue the theme of tastes and smells in two of the best poems in the "Chinese Poems" section. In "GongGong and Susie" the author’s grandfather narrates:

Many times

I did eat

skunk

soup.

Take out them

stinky thing,

cook

with garlic, onion.

If skunk soup isn’t to your liking, try "Grandmother’s Almond Cookies":

One hand sugar, one hand lard

(cut in pieces when still hard),

two hands flour, more or less,

one pinch baking powder. Guess.

The "American Poems" section is, like America, filled with contradictions. In "Manners" Janet Wong explores the differences between Chinese and Korean table etiquette and concludes:

you might wonder

if you aren’t better off

sticking with

a knife and fork.

When you’re truly a force to reckon with, as Janet Wong clearly is, you don’t need to carry on loudly and at great length about it. To close, here’s "Quitter" — a poem that ought to be translated into every language in the world so every kid can read it — in its entirety:

Coach calls me a quitter.

He mutters it under his breath

loud enough for me to hear,

but quiet enough

so no one knows

when I prove him wrong.