#fay chiang

[elizabethanism]

still walking

all hours of the day

the streets of this city

of my birth;

—

elements against my open face

still alive.

-Fay Chiang (1952-2017), from “Landmarks of Geography”

[poetsandwriters]

still walking all hours of the day the streets of this city of my birth; Chinatown, the Lower East Side, And East Village my home. wind, sun, rain, snow sleet — elements against my open face still alive.

Fay Chiang (1951–2017), former director of Poets & Writers’ Readings & Workshops program

[sinetheta]

his long tapered fingers  guide my young hand curved around  bamboo brush pen      to form my name         in chinese:              family name, chiang; from northern china               we came south on                 tamed wild horses and became                                  farmers              middle name, wei, shared by you and your                sisters, intelligence              and your own ping, for peace or plains of green field bits of characters:    green, heart, three dots of water, woods, home write again and again, your name,   that you may never             forget it.

from American Born and Foreign by Fay Chiang. 1979.

Fay Ping Chiang was a Chinese American poet, visual artist, and activist born in the Bronx and raised in Queens. A co-founder and former director of the Basement Workshop, an Asian American arts collective, Chiang is also known for her work with Henry Street Settlement’s Asian American Outreach Program, Poets & Writers’ Readings/Workshops, Project Reach. 

This poem is from an anthology of American and Foreign Born, an Asian American poetry anthology under Sunbury Press’ poetry magazine. Frequently written in all lowercase letters, Chiang’s poetry reflects her search for identity and determination to preserve culture. 

Fay Chiang passed away on October 20, 2017 after a longtime battle with breast cancer, but her legacy lives on in her creations and community impact.

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[funksflo]

but we with our spirit, our love, our sinew/ we are among the survivors/ spread the news.

fay chiang. “in the city of contradictions.” asian american poet <3

[efainterns]

Speaking Portraits: A Conversation with Stolen Lives and Families.

Last night EFA Project Space hosted an event in conjunction with its current exhibition Double Visions. “Speaking Portraits” highlighted Fay Chiang’s Portraits (on view now as part of Double Visions), and brought together the Stolen Lives Project and the families of young victims of police brutality. This event was very emotionally charged, but also extremely powerful. Hearing these men and women speak about the tragic killings of their children and family members was truly heartbreaking, but the sense of unity and camaraderie amongst the people at last night’s event was very prevalent.

Kathie Cheng, coordinator of the Stolen Lives Project, gave us harrowing statistics on police brutality: “1101 people were killed by police brutality last year in the United States (this only counts the ones reported on by mainstream media). There have been 239 people killed in 2015 so far, and 748 since Eric Garner (July 2014)”. 

“Speaking Portraits” was not just an event to share the stories of these young victims and their families, it was also a cry for change.

The mission of the Stolen Lives Project is to assemble a national list of people killed by law enforcement agents from 1990 to the present. Through grassroots efforts, over 2000 cases were documented in the second edition of the Stolen Lives book, which was published in 1999. Although just the tip of the iceberg, these 2000+ are evidence of a horrifying national epidemic of police brutality. The victims of police violence were part of our society, but rarely are their lives or names publicized, or the real circumstances surrounding their deaths investigated and made known. The Stolen Lives Project aims to restore some dignity to the lives lost. Though their lives have been stolen from us, we will not allow them to be forgotten.