A Suitcase of Seaweed

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wong, Janet S. 1996. A SUITCASE OF SEAWEED: and other poems. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0689807880

SUMMARY
"A collection of poems that reflect the experiences of Asian Americans, particularly their family relationships." COPYRIGHT PAGE

ANALYSIS
This collection of poems is divided into three sections, reflecting Wong's background in three nationalities. At the beginning of each section, Wong includes a quick pen and ink sketch representative of the poems in that section. She opens the book with a drawing of food, a bowl of noodles, and poem imagining her father meeting her mother in Korea. Also at the beginning of each section, Wong shares a series of short imagery rich impressions giving a brief snippet of family history and the country of origin for each of her parents.

I like that she opens the book with Korean Poems. It feels fitting to start with her mother, and her mother's family, since a child will first identify most strongly with her mother. As a result, these poems deal mostly with maternal themes. The majority are about food; food that her mother cooks, or withholds from a guest. Food that the author has learned to cook, eat and enjoy because of her mother. The poem that gives the book its name, "A Suitcase of Seaweed" is in this section, and tells the story of the poet's grandmother coming from Korea, bringing her suitcase,

"sealed shut
with tape,
packed full
of sheets
of shiny black
seaweed..." (7)

The language throughout the book is full of sharp thoughful imagery. The poems have rhythm and pacing that makes them tempting to read aloud. Students will enjoy the rhyming poems with their various rythmic rhyme schemes, but the free verse poems also have a clear flow, and the language and word choice will pull a reader through the poem, waiting for tension to be resolved at the end, to find out the next clue of insight to Wong's story.

The next section, "Chinese Poems," concentrates at first on the character and influence of Wong's Chinese grandfather. His voice and personality come alive in just a few poems. In this section Wong also begins to deal with issues of appetite and weight. In "Shrimp," she speak so being "ashamed of my appetite," forcing her eyes away from the food left on the plate. (21)

Wong begins the last section, "American Poems," with an ink drawing of a face, half Asian and half Caucasian, titled "half and half." These poems deal with Wong's struggle to define her identity. As a young woman she deals with typical adolescent issues such as friendships, trends, and a growing distance from idlyllic childhood, while also also seeking to balance her family's expectations with the person she wants to become. Wong ends the deeply family focused collection with "Quilt" a poem reaffirming the strength of her family.

REVIEWS
"Wong was born in America of Chinese and Korean heritage, but the basic subjects she addresses in neat stanzas of free verse aim at the heart of any family, any race." SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL

"Neat, well-turned poems, monologues, and aphorisms . . . The imagery is choice, the thoughts pointed and careful, the vocabulary attractive: In many of the pieces comedy and delicacy mingle in a single line." KIRKUS

CONNECTIONS
This book is more appropriate as a whole in the classroom at a later level, perhaps the end of middle school or early high school. It might draw readers of younger ages with a few selections of the free verse in a poetry unit. The themes of not fitting in and alienation are universal for adolescents, whether their family emmigrated recently or not. This might be too sensitive a topic for open classroom discussion, but students could write short essays on themes or lines from the poems that spoke to them personally. The collection of poems is also a memoir in a way, and students could use it in a unit on American history and the "melting pot" of diverse cultures and peoples who emmigrated here and made this country what it is. Students could be encouraged to share their own family history, and tell about their country of origin.