Poem of the Week, by Adrienne Su
When I was 20 I flew to Taipei with a plane ticket and the hope of finding a place to live and somewhere to study Chinese. I took a cab to a hotel, where I stayed for three days, mostly in the tall narrow box of a bathtub, too scared and lonely and unsure of everything to venture out. Starvation finally drove me down to the lobby. I said, having practiced it over and over, “Wo e si le. Fanguan zai nali?” which translates as “I’m dying of hunger. Where is a restaurant?” The three glasses-wearing Chinese men behind the counter leapt up with cries of concern, led me outside and pointed across the street. Once there I scanned the menu, scrawled on long tendrils of paper pinned to the walls, until I recognized the two characters for potstickers. I ordered 16, at a penny apiece, and ate them all. Those potstickers live in memory, visceral memory, like everything Adrienne Su describes in her wonderful poem below. I still dream about them.
Substitutions, by Adrienne Su
Balsamic, for Zhenjiang vinegar.
Letters, for the family gathered.
A Cuisinart, for many hands.
Petty burglars, for warring bands.
A baby’s room, for tight quarters.
Passing cars, for neighbors.
Lawn-mower buzzing, for bicycle bells.
Cod fillets, for carp head-to-tail.
Children who overhear the language,
for children who speak the language.
Virginia ham, for Jinhua ham,
and nothing, for the noodle man,
calling as he bears his pole
down alley and street, its baskets full
of pickled mustard, scallions, spice,
minced pork, and a stove he lights
where the customer happens to be,
the balance of hot, sour, salty, sweet,
which decades later you still crave,
a formula he’ll take to the grave.
For more information about Adrienne Su, please click here.
Last week the painter had a dream in which an old friend, dead in an instant two years ago now, appeared, smiling and so happy to see him. Do you think he came back because he died so fast and he wanted to say goodbye to you? I asked him when he told me about the dream. Who knows? Maybe, the painter said. Either way it was good to see him, happy and healthy. W.S. Merwin has always been a poet of dreams to me, what with his imagery and the way his unpunctuated poems float on the page. His calm voice drifts across the water, and sometimes one of his poems feels exactly right.
Dog lovers of the world, you are many and you are fabulous. I have loved putting together these dog of destiny posts. What began as a celebration of my new Percy, Dog of Destiny picture book has turned into a celebration of dogs in general. Soulful, hilarious, generous, slightly evil, sometimes scheming, always beautiful dogs. This is the last in the series. Enjoy!
Do you love picture books? Have you ever wanted to write one? Are you curious how to go about it? Welcome to my one-day picture book writing workshop!
Sometimes all I want is a poem that’s rhythm and rhyme, words placed and spaced so they turn into a song inside my head. Langston Hughes does that. So does Dylan Thomas. And so does Mr. Eliot, below. I memorized this poem so that it will always be with me. Poem, you are a voice shaken from the yew-tree, and here I am, replying.
This is Callie. She’s in dog heaven now, but in her glory days she excelled at searching out and gobbling down poop of indiscriminate sources. She also had a lovely, elegant habit of lying on the floor with her paws crossed in front of her. Rest in peace, sweet girl.
This poem haunts me. Not because it’s sad –or maybe it is; I don’t really know what this poem is about– but because when I read it, it brings back times of internal struggle. Like 
People who have been reading the poem of the week on this blog for years now must think, seeing this week’s selection, Wow, does this woman love Naomi Shihab Nye. And they would be right. Sometimes, walking down the street, I recite lines from her poems, maybe because they’re beautiful, maybe because they make me feel less alone, maybe because they remind me, always, that kindness is all that matters. At a restaurant a couple of weeks ago, a friend said to me, “I read a poem today that I think you would love. It’s by a woman named Naomi something”–and I said, “Naomi Shihab Nye!” Once, a couple of years ago, I saw a tiny notice in the paper that she was giving a talk that very night at a school near me –she lives in Texas and this was in Minneapolis– so I zipped right over. The talk was in a high school classroom and I sat in a chair in the front row. And afterward I asked if she minded a photo. So that’s me, with Naomi my hero, and this concludes my Naomi Shihab Nye story in favor of her beautiful poem, of which I love this line most of all: Each carries a tender spot: Something our lives forgot to give us. 
Alison McGhee 