Artist Wong Shares With Us

Last year, Oakland resident Flo Oy Wong came with author John Jung, and spoke about her life growing up in a restaurant. On Sunday, she returned to share her poetry and art. She showed us some of her installation artwork, which makes use of a unique medium: silk screening on rice sacks. 

1997 Solo Exhibition "Rice Grains" at University of Kansas

2004 Exhibit in Koret Gallery, SF Library

She also shared some of her poetry.  “Home,”which was first published in the 2nd zine of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, is inspired by her mother who worked 17-hour days in a restaurant:

Home is Settled With Heart
I have traveled this road so long
Perhaps its flavor perfumes my dreams.
Often now when I look upon it
I taste joy and sorrow
Ancestors sprinkled upon me
A bit of rice here
A bit of rice there.
They, worn and tired,
From labor in wet fields
Whisper that home is settled with heart.
I go on, carrying their sweat and toil,
To embrace offspring whose journey
Glows warm through a curtained window
For which their lives are spent.
(July 2015)

"See That Tree?" was published in the inaugural issue of the online journal The Literary Nest.

"See that tree, Say So?
It is dying. So must I."
Your words float towards me in your small apartment
The freeway noise, an uninvited companion,
Rumbles into the living room
Where you and I sit
Our hearts linked, hands not touching
Your slippers sliding to the floor.
I smile to hide my unease
I look at you, kind eyes framed by wrinkles
Not many but they are there.
Your hair pulled back in a bun
Worn that way for many years
Except for the time you had a perm
Curls making you uncomfortable
I didn't know you then
But I know you now.
Our knowing shimmering like light green opals
Of your ring mounted in soft gold
Worn when you wiped your son's face
On a sultry summer's eve
That iridescence I feel now
As I fumble on a thin layer of dreams.
(Jan 25, 2015)