Emily Strauss

Qing Ming: Grave-Sweeping Festival

Second great uncle, grandpa’s

younger brother, we have come,

the fireworks announce, cascading

down the gully, the entire family

panting up the dirt path clutching

a whole roast piglet, assorted

plastic shopping bags, snotty

fat ten-year-old great grandson,

come to sweep your grave of rare

tropical pine needles, lording over

the fully-automated container port below

while high up the hill golf carts

don’t even pause, the players smile

at such loud pops, this is China,

the one from Arizona sweats

in the hot fog while Mr. Mak

wishes he could simply call

these ghosts on his mobile

to report on his wife’s affair.

Interview

TSTmpj:  Your poem suggests you may have visited China, and or have some familial connection with it.  What do you admire most about Chinese culture?

Emily Strauss:  Actually after living almost 8 years there, I became quite disenchanted by the culture. Admire? Sadly, not much right now, except maybe their tenacity, their extreme longevity. They were always curious to meet a foreigner, which I was called a hundred times a day on the street. They could be friendly too on occasion, and I received some decent treatment by strangers. They are certainly survivors.

TSTmpj:  How have your preoccupations as a poet changed in your over thirty years of writing poetry?

Emily Strauss:  I used to write only when a strong emotion flooded me and I needed to express it. Later I took some workshops and realized I could respond to prompts. More lately, I consider many things that occur in daily life around me, snippets of scenes, or old events in my life, and realize I can write about all of them. It has become more mundane, less mental, but also easier to find topics to deal with. Now I just try to express a whole scene or story; my poems are much less personal than at first.

TSTmpj:  Do you wish to share any thoughts on your method of composing poetry?

Emily Strauss:  Composing? I sit with a pencil and any slip of paper. I have an idea and begin gathering words and phrases. I imagine emotive words that express a feeling or image. I write them down and then scratch and circle. I sometimes use a thesaurus. I feel for a desired shape. I put it away and come back to it many many times later, sometimes years later. It's not very brilliant but I keep at it; if I were really good, I would have had books published long ago.

Bio Note

Emily Strauss wrote poems for 30 years before admitting it; talk about coming out of the closet late. Now she’s published.