A Natural History of My White Girl by Ching-In Chen

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend November 13, 2014   A Natural History of My White Girl   Ching-In Chen

after Mendi Obadike   When I was a white girl, I had no mother. I drank whiskey, lived in a house with no walls.   Girls visited and marveled at my room to breathe. When it was sunny, they let down their hair, drank fresh orange juice.   We drank all morning, didn’t go to class. I knew which words to carry in the arsenal, which memory to disarm           the most resilient bully. Nobody bothered us or asked why we were missing.   I never doubted this was me. I knew how to pull up short, how to light          my name under their skin.   There was no need for mirrors. No need to get free.            Copyright © 2014 by Ching-In Chen. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “‘A Natural History of My White Girl’ started as a challenge from Gregory Pardlo—to write to the ghost in the room, one which I always secretly imagined lived under the surface of my life, morphing through the television screen of my childhood, through the laughter of the children in my elementary school who couldn’t pronounce my name. Ultimately, this poem is about growing compassion for myself and for the ghosts I imagined kept me company, whose stories I inherited.” —Ching-In Chen   Ching-In Chen is the author of The Heart’s Traffic (Red Hen Press/Arktoi Books, 2009) and lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Most Recent Book by Chen   The Heart’s Traffic (Red Hen Press/Arktoi Books, 2009) "Fifteen, Maybe Sixteen Things to Worry About" by Judith Viorst "Giraffes" by Kimiko Hahn "deer & salt block" by Joshua Marie Wilkinson Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038