Edmond Li ASA 002 A03 Week 10

In the final chapter of the weekly blogs, I will cover the poem "My Kintsuki: March 3, 2014, Minneapolis, His Holiness Held My Hand to His Heart" by W.P. As expected of the final poem of "Fight the Tower", this poem has a triumphant tone. The author, Wang Ping, seems to have finally won her case and overcame the struggles of academia. The poem starts out describing how tough the battle has been. It was so tough that Wang Ping feels she is going to die. Eventually, His Holiness came to town and once the author reached him, her struggle was finally over. Her life will be going nowhere but up. The title Kintsuki stood out to me and once I found the definition, I understood why it is the perfect title. Kintsuki refers to a shattered pot that was repaired with gold, silver, and platinum. The valuable jewels are emphasized on the repaired pot and it became better than before it was broken. The pot represented Wang Ping's struggles in academia. After she joined academia, the "shattered pots" represented her struggle with discrimination with a tenure. Using the gold that is her willpower, she managed to make her dream come true. While the repaired pot is her tenure, the gold is more important as Wang Ping now supports struggling Asian American women and guiding them to be just like her. Her determination is certainly inspiring to me and Wang Ping has earned my respect.



Reference:

Valverde, Kieu-Linh Caroline, and Wei Ming Dariotis. Fight the Tower: Asian American Women Scholars' Resistance and Renewal in the Academy. Rutgers University Press, 2020.

Image: https://blog.adw.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/stairs-3507364_960_720.jpg