Serrina Zou
Serrina Zou is a Chinese-American writer from San Jose, California, a 2019 California Arts Scholar in Creative Writing, a 2020 Foyle Commended Young Poet, and a two-time Scholastic National Medalist in Poetry. Her poetry and prose have been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, The Poetry Society of the UK, Just Poetry!!!, the Asian Pacific Fund, the Crown Education Challenge, the American Jewish Historical Society, and the Bay Area Book Festival. Her work appears or is forthcoming in the National Poetry Quarterly, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Up North Lit, under the gum tree, and elsewhere. Source
Abecedarian for American Assimilation
& how we lose ourselves against the new year
burning brighter with each dying
candle, baiting our breaths in the temple’s
dimness. Already, the newborn lantern light
ebbs away from our fluttering fingers, echoing
fireflies mating at dusk. How we used to sink into
grey, muted by the silhouette of a nation
hungering for our heads; our hands clasping
in between gasps for mercy. Tell me, is my
jaded tongue invitation for this prayer of
knives? At night I toil among the reaping ghosts,
listening to the thunder of fireworks my ancestors
mistake for the revolution’s canons. In my family
no spirit escapes the altar where orange incense &
opium drown the cries of a body lingering against
perfumed mortuary of language. Like a daughter, I
quiet the rebellion knotted inside my throat; in
rigor mortis, morning excavates my ashes inside
sutured skies. In every dream, I consider coming clean
through my skin like a shadow, every bare bloodline
unedited & untouched. In every reality, I play
vulture to my native vocabulary; carve the exit
wounds into the spine of teeth, whispering
xīn nián kuài lè in worship of the newness
yellowing the old. Somewhere in the next life, I want to
zip these sacred scars, memorialize the forgotten.
Published:
2021
Length:
Regular
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2024
Themes:
Identity
Intersectionality & Culture
Poetic Form
Literary Devices:
Abecedarian
an ancient form that is guided by alphabetical order. When written in English, each line or stanza generally begins with the letters of the alphabet in order. The form was traditionally used in ancient cultures for sacred writings such as prayers, hymns, and psalms.
Alliteration
the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession
Rhetorical Question
a question asked for effect, not necessarily to be answered
Simile
a comparison between two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”
Transferred Epithet
When an adjective usually used to describe one thing is transferred to another.