Asian Addicts Anonymous

I love the literary magazine Epiphany and they recently featured Zheng Yu’s “Name名.”

Things and beauty can always be lost in translation and be awkward. Zheng Yu is writing with English as her second language, and this is a beautiful poem about how her grandfather struggled to find the perfect name for his granddaughter.

While the entire poem is great, the second half told from her grandfather’s perspective before returning to her own is my favorite part. Just look at this beautiful verse!

I saw crown
reunion
a cloud changing her ethereal face
in the hope that
you were born at midday
into a dictionary of good things
and I felt I could never be careful enough

Zheng Yu, “Name名”

Do check it out and look forward to more of her work as a writer as she works to recover the lost echoes of her female ancestors.