Có chí làm quan, có gan làm giàu.
Vietnamese proverb, Fortune favors the brave.
Happy Poetry Friday! People are sooo interesting, aren't they? I just love hearing stories, everybody's stories. One of my father's cousins was a motorcycle racer, until he lost a foot doing it. Here's a poem by Hoa Nguyen, who says her mother "left home at 15 and joined a circus and became a motorcycle stunt-woman in Vietnam in the early 1960s. She did these amazing things contrary to what her position as a poor woman, born in 1942 in the Mekong Delta, should have been.” (I feel like this poem -- and last week's -- would be good mentor poems to encourage high school students to write about their ancestors...or perhaps historical figures.)
My Idea of the Circus Is My Idea of the Circus Otherwise Known As: My Mother Was a Celebrated Stunt Motorcyclist, Vietnam, 1958 to 1962
by Hoa Nguyen
Very loud a mad frenzy The wooden
barrel she rode would have roared
(I first wrote “road”)
Left home to join the circus: 15 years old
You enter at the bottom and wind upwards
in spirals the bike climbing the sides
You enter the barrel on a Peugeot
with automatic tied down handles
I mean the kind that you can peg
so you can ride hands-free
arms out like wings on either side...
read the rest here
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TeacherDance has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Linda!
10 comments:
Interesting to me how the spacing between the words adds to the frenzied feel of the stunt ride--and I love the rising at the end.
Amazing, and I wonder how many stories of young ones 'running off to join the circus there are? I love that she seemed to make "Ripped pedal pusher pants" an aside. No helmet, nothing to it! And, I love that she's written this about her mother & reading about your father's cousin! Thanks, Tabatha!
What an interesting poem, Tabetha! Can you imagine riding a motorcycle inside a barrel – and falling! Yikes! This poem certainly does spark ideas for writing about ancestors. Great suggestion!
Wow, this is amazing!! A female stunt motorcyclist? A first for me. It does make you want to learn more about your ancestors and the odd/wonderful/dangerous things they may have been doing.
Wow, this is wonderful! I love her poem, her ancestry, and your idea for a writing prompt. Thanks for sharing this, Tabatha!
What a fascinating story! I love the prompt idea too.
"arms out like wings" -- didn't we all sail down a street on our bikes, imagining we were flying... but not in a circus!
Whoosh! I felt nervous by the third stanza! But I always hated ancestry-based assts at school. My parents never talked about their families, we didn't really know our extended family, and I have no idea of my ancestral culture. It made me feel like an outsider...
I agree...the idea of writing a poem like this based on my ancestors. It's funny in the way it's spaced (to me) but it gives a feeling of motion. That flying hair--that no care, no worry sight. And soon, Viet Nam would be too at war for circuses, I imagine. What a poem! Thanks
Like others, I like the idea of a poem based on ancestors. The first thing I did when we got home from Ireland was to check the family tree (compiled by our eldest son in 2009) to see if we had any Irish in us. Unfortunately, no. But, I do have some interesting finds from my parents' house that could contribute to a poem, however. Thanks.
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