Third Place Winner: Wendy Wong   Strung Jade and Running Shoes   She is a jaded peony- a singular stance. Cementing opium wars and then little by little deceiving, western gaieties. Born native but always undercutting Groveling at the plasticity of identity, A kind of speciation that comes with being a culture strider.   Her cries are audible, But only credible through translation. The space between a blink: the instantaneous moment of an epiphany, All become lost when her construction is done, And her conformation reduced to thieving from the ones before her.   Paradigms of words and song notes, Drowning in a collective conscience, Melody and bars meaning to be a continuum, Wanting to live, die off, tradition dies off.   It is an exodus, she was to follow. But interplay becomes block, Assimilation becomes a pattern, And she becomes intangible. Uprooting the red silk brocade stitches.   Chinese grandma’s songs could not hold the western wind. Chop suey no longer bonds; and The strung jade fell apart and the songs ran away. Back to Oct/03 Winners Home