Poetry Friday: Seeing Emily
Seeing Emily by Joyce Lee Wong is an unusual young adult book because it is written entirely in verse. Following the life of Emily Wu, a sixteen year old Chinese American living in Richmond, Virginia, the book is set out in poetic episodes of first person narrative. It begins in the Chinese restaurant of Emily’s parents where she helps out part-time. The first section titled “Golden Palace” begins with a poem called “Flirting.” It is clear from this opening that Emily is embarking on a journey of adolescent awakening. However, it is not just a sexual awakening that Emily experiences but also one to her identity as an Asian American woman. Typically, feelings of shame — towards her parents’ eating habits, for example — mingle with her protective affection for them. Similarly, her feelings of ambivalence towards a talented Chinese school mate, Alex Huang, are in direct opposition to the near adulation of her first boyfriend, Nick, who, she realizes later, cannot see beyond her Asian features to the girl inside.
Emily is also an artist. Throughout the book, Emily works first on drawings, and then on a mural project for her school. She chooses a tiger to paint for the mural and uses it as a metaphor for things going on in her personal life:
As I started another tiger sketch
I thought of Nick
and felt the stirrings of heat within,
the quickening of my heartbeat
rhythmic and insistent
as the pounding of drums
echoing through the foliage of
the tiger’s jungle home.
The gift of perceiving reality through metaphor is the poet’s and that is why poetry is a suitable medium for Wong’s characterization of Emily. The poetic narrative works here to good effect in a way that would appeal to a young adult reader.
This week’s Poetry Friday host is Sylvia Vardell at Poetry for Children.
July 31st, 2009 at 9:11 am
This book sounds wonderful! Thank you for bringing it to my notice!
August 1st, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Thanks for joining the Poetry Friday gathering this week and for your lovely review of SEEING EMILY, which I also liked so much. See you online again soon!
Sylvia
August 2nd, 2009 at 1:43 am
I have to read it!
August 4th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
It’s interesting how we’re seeing more and more novels in verse: The Surrender Tree, Aleutian Sparrow… and all of them, including Seeing Emily, award-winning, too! I’ll try to get hold of this one. It sounds very good.
August 5th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Aline, thanks for the other title of novels-in-verse. I’ll have to check them out! Seeing Emily was my first taste of this kind of work in the YA reading category so it was definitely a new reading experience for me.
September 20th, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Seeing Emily is my all-time favorite novel. Any person (though usually female) of an race, religion, or age can relate to it in multiple ways. Beautifully written, with excellent imagery, you can tell this novel was first written in verse. Just wonderful, it took my breath away the first time, and still does. Joyce Lee Wong is inspiring.