Going toward the ghost | Jane Wong | TEDxPineCrestSchool

Jane takes us from the Great Leap Forward to going toward the ghost, arguing that her role as an Asian American poet is to bear witness to a "history of trauma and migration", and offers that this is a "poetics of haunting" that is essential to reclaim histories and narratives that remain untold, or worse, are simply forgotten.

Jane Wong holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is a former U.S. Fulbright Fellow and Kundiman Fellow. Her poem "Thaw" was recently chosen by Sherman Alexie in the Best American Poetry 2015 anthology. She is also the recipient of scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Currently, she teaches literature and poetry at the University of Washington and the Richard Hugo House. The recipient of Meridian’s 2013 Editors’ Prize, poems have appeared in journals such as CutBank, Hayden’s Ferry Review, ZYZZYVA, Mid-American Review, The Volta, Salt Hill, The Journal, and the anthologies Best American Poetry 2015 (Scribner), Best New Poets 2012 (The University of Virginia Press) and The Arcadia Project: North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press).

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx