Chavonne Taylor aka Vida Starr is one of the original WCC members and has been with us for the past four years. She is an innovative and charismatic leader who hosts the hip hop radio show On Blast every Thursday 7pm PST/pm central/10pm EST. Tune in as she talks about critical issues of gender, popular culture, and politics as well as introducing new idependent and underground Hip Hop music on www.blogtalkradio.com/obr
Ching-in Chen is one of the talented “Burning Your Secrets” workshop facilitators at the first annual WCC Skill Share Retreat. Ching-in has published a beautiful book called The Heart’s Traffic. This novel-in-poems chronicles the life of Xiaomei, an immigrant girl
haunted by the death of her best friend. Told through a kaleidoscopic
braid of stories, letters, and riddles, this stunning debut collection
follows Xiaomei’s life as she grows into her sexuality and searches for
a way to deal with her complicated histories. Below is an excerpt from her book. You can buy The Heart’s Traffic at http://www.arktoi.com/books/heart.shtml
Xiaomei’s First Heartbreak
By Ching-in Chen
Gone the clanging midnight door, perpetual raised voice.
Xiaomei wakes in the dew, the traffic of her heart missing.
Her father did not say goodbye. Or he visited her, a stealth-owl dream.
Either way, her memory does not
appear at the short wooden door or trail her through the full streets like the older boys in the
neighborhood.
Her mother does not cry, but continues.
Every morning,
gruel
pickle
quick to schoolbag
onto the noise of street.
He disappeared into the black hole of America, an odd
place with beer-drinking, restaurant-opening aunties and cousins
who like cereal.
No letter arrives.
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