In preschool I learned to speak
English consonants and vowels
tumbling out my toddler mouth:
No. No. I want. I know.
Turned my back on my parents’
tongue, Chinese phonemes too difficult
and different from everyone else. Beaded
together clumsy … more »
He tries so hard to prove himself—
Through every syllable, every word,
he enunciates slowly,
Pursuing excellence, perfection
but, the words refuse to cooperate with his work.
And so, he feels shame rising
over a language
he cannot control,
over … more »
Tired, so tired,
held up by fraying strings,
she’d drag us through throngs
at sales. We’d shrivel,
she’d fume. “Service!
I need service!”
Clerks could never
shush her.
At restaurants, overlooked
single mom with three kids, no father
to focus … more »
At the grade eight dance, they find you
hiding behind folded lunch tables,
seize your hands and feet, drag you
across the floor like a mop.
On the dance floor, a girl
feigns stomping on your face.
You run to … more »
Earlier in the year, I was lucky to meet with five lovely and talented Vancouver-based film figures. Phil Planta, Mayumi Yoshida, Nach Dudsdeemaytha, Jerome Yoo, and Lee Shorten shared their thoughts on projects that have won … more »
Have you ever had those dreams
you know, those carbon-dark
sorts of dreams?
Where monsters and men made
of the same fabric move in
and out of each other, amorphic?
I’ve had; those sorts of dreams.
those lamp-black,
sorts of … more »
Our new L-shaped house embraced
a pool as its heart, a curving
figure eight, turquoise shimmer
mirroring turquoise clapboard.
My father’s pristine pride
May through September. He’d
skim off leaves, vacuum sediment,
push the long-poled brush along the bottom
back … more »
Vancouver’s film scene is blessed with a rich and vast talent pool. In the past few years, Phil Planta, Mayumi Yoshida, Nach Dudsdeemaytha, Jerome Yoo, and Lee Shorten have come together and collaborated on several remarkable … more »
Every morning, whether the sky is a cloudless forget-me-not blue or a grayscale thunderstorm, my older brother Davy opens his bedroom windows and takes a photo. On his happiest days, he opens all the windows in the house, as if … more »
The death of Benjamin occurred curtly past the midnight of November eleventh. Twelve years, a short amount for those of his kind has lasted longer than the love of the young marriages told about in the stories by my grandmother. … more »