A Suitcase of Seaweed and Other Poems

Bibliographic Information
Wong, Janet S. 1996. A SUITCASE OF SEAWEED AND OTHER POEMS. Simon & Shuster Children’s Publishing Division. New York, NY. ISBN 0689807880

Plot
Janet S. Wong has created an amazing view into the personal world of a Chinese Korean American. Based on her own life with a Korean mother, a Chinese father, and living in America, these thirty-six poems are ‘classified’ according to the ethnic heritage she remembers having for the inspiration of the poem. Her poems vary greatly in length, style, and subject matter. They are all similar in all the free-verse poems humorously look at life with charm, nostalgia, and tenderness. No subject is taboo to her. From “Love at First Sight” where she discusses her mother and father’s courtship, to her eating soup in “Beef Bone Soup,” to the marked difference she feels at being different in “Other,” Wong shares the essence of growing up in a nation grown for nationalizing all types of foreign nationals.

Critical Analysis
The sheer emotion in these poems allows you to become Wong when she was a little girl. In the heartfelt “Quilt,” we see that although Wong’s life growing up seems as if it were made of many tiny, unrelated pieces, it fits together to keep her spirit and soul “warm” despite the “bitter cold” she might face outside of her home. The rhythm and the lack of rhyme in the majority of her poems paint a metaphor for her own life—a life that all children from two separate cultures must learn to view as the American experience. In a seemingly senseless pattern to her life, she slowly realizes her life makes sense, and is deftly able to express these thoughts and feelings through her careful choice of language, imagery, and wit. This tiny volume smattered with a few drawings by the poet herself would bring comfort, joy, with a twinkling grin to students who might be experiencing the loneliness and confusion in growing up in our country today. In summary, this poetry collection holds the power to help young adults make sense of their world and who they are in it.

Review Excerpts
School Library Journal: "Wong was born in America of Chinese and Korean heritage,but the basic subjects she addresses in neat stanzas of free verseaim at the heart of any family, any race."
Kirkus Reviews: "Neat, well-turned poems, monologues, and aphorisms . . . The imagery is choice, the thoughts pointed and careful, the vocabulary attractive: In many of the pieces comedy and delicacy mingle in a single line."

Connections
After reading a few poems about being different, such as
When I Grow Up
After a Dinner of Fish
Sisters
Marathon
Manners
Face It
Other
Straight A’s invite students to write a poem that shows ways in which they feel different from other people. Assure students they do not have to share them, but if they wish, have any and all volunteers present their poems. Perhaps discuss how you felt different as a child to assure children their feelings are normal.