Parnell Poetry prize winner, art by Kerri Aines, Chris Sumner, and an interview with Midge Goldberg.

Our 2007 Parnell Poetry prize-winning piece:

I Tell the Truth - Nancy Tupper Ling

a good mother wanted
her children to denounce her,
her Kuomintang ties,
her rightest secrets:

how she tucked dried plums
into her daughters’ pockets
when other children
went without,

how she stitched the Golden
Gate to her pillowcase,
Slept on its strong, burnished
beams and dreamed

of her sisters, their shoebox
houses tucked into America’s
hillsides. Gwo laih.
They call to her. Come over.

This was the only way.
If her children pounded
their fists, waved their red
flags, saluted the Chairman

as he passed by, the party
pledged honor to them.
At what cost? A tiny mother
in rice paddies: her feet,

swollen and muddied,
her prayer—may they forget
the words, their words,
which brought me here.



COMPASS ROSE interviews poet Midge Goldberg:
Compass Rose: As you were developing as a writer, were there any artists you tried to emulate? How did that affect your work?
Midge Goldberg: There were writers that I liked that got me into it when I first started. (more)


For Sale, in Mint Condition, by Chris Sumner.
"Last week had been the china. That was the first to go. The pale blue tea set from some French boutique whose name she could not quite recall. It had incurred no damage on its journey through the family." (more)



By Kerri Aines.