Kathy Mak
Biography
Kathy Mak occasionally writes and draws. She is the author of chapbook Another Day (845 Press, 2020). Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared/are forthcoming in The/tƐmz/Review, Marías at Sampaguitas, Kissing Dynamite, This Magazine, Understorey Magazine, Canthius, The Malahat Review, and The Fiddlehead. She creates to capture fleeting moments of life and to reflect on her experiences. Visit her website: http://kathymak.weebly.com/
Poetics Statement
“One summer I took classes at the university. I liked the smell of freshly cut grass mingling in the summer wind. The wonderous spots on the mountain where you can glimpse a sunset or the city at night. But most of all, I liked the solitude. It was that summer that I discovered the trove on the sixth floor of the library. From the stairs off to the east wall, were shelves and shelves of literary journals. Thick hardcover bindings in forest green, red, or blue, held issues dated decades ago. Recent issues sat on metal shelves facing the opening. Every page harboured a different story, a different promise. It was within this space that I felt the most homely. The aroma of new and old, past and present, filled me in ways that I can’t articulate, but this was where I held poetry.
When I write, poetry allows me to explore, capture, and make sense of my experiences and the things around me. In my chapbook Another Day, I write about family, culture, identity as a way to trace my cultural roots through diaspora, and to remember those who came before me. These themes are still largely prevalent in my work while I continue to experiment with form and flow, and the possibilities of poetry as it breathes into other mediums I work in. ”
Sample of Poet's Work
九月十五
On the night of mid-autumn,
father hauls his bright red telescope
to the balcony. The wind whistles past
as we stand under heavy winter jackets,
waiting to glimpse beyond 49th avenue.
My toes snug against the metal legs,
I lean in until the rim of my eye
sinks into the cool cold glass,
skin beneath fire.
The ancient poet Li Bai once
reminisced for his family
under this very hour
床前明月光
疑是地上霜
舉頭望明月
低頭思故鄉
it’s poetry
stirring beneath
the glowing
dark
Previously published in Another Day (845 Press, 2020)
you swallow the moon whole
you swallow the moon whole
for every year I’m away
in broad daylight blue shadows ricochet
off the planes of your face
along your left cheek to the hollow of
your throat the mosquito bite
buried pores and jagged grey crevices
loom into existence
Popo time slips by
unnoticed until we’re faced with it the air between
parts in cadences neither of us can cover
there was a time when I sat on your bed
let the calloused edge of your fingernail trace over
the lines on my palm marriage wealth life
etched onto dry land you tell me hands are a
map of destiny unraveling as we speak
to 把握 is to grasp time into the heart of your hand
and pull it close to home until the measure of two breaths
wanes into one
when I close
my eyes I feel the soft ragged dents of
your fingers you used to knob a fist behind your back
the jade bangle translucent against your weathered
wrist how the lot of my fingers become
curled into the heart of your hand falling in step
with every jolt
Popo the past
hold a slice of who we are but nothing truly
stays words spill out of your mouth in gray
and I don’t know whether to believe you sit
behind the shadows taking one sip two sips three sips
out of the reedy spoon the thin lapse of your lips
shriveled tight you think the remedy of oatmeal
can guise the pills to swallow but memory
always holds
light rays fall
on your edges as you continue to nibble away
the screen a receding mirror stills
as we hang in silence your eyes shuttered
into an endless fathom
already out of
reach
Previously published in Prairie Fire (2021)