A Sichuan Diaspora Daughter's Kitchen by Yilin Wang

Yilin Wang has made the2020CBC Poetry Prize longlistforA Sichuan Diaspora Daughter's Kitchen.

The winner of the 2020CBCPoetry Prizewill receive $6,000 from theCanada Council for the Arts, have their work published onCBC Booksand have the opportunity to attend a two-week writing residency attheBanff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand have their work published onCBC Books.

The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 5and the winner will be announced on Nov. 12.

About YilinWang

Yilin Wang is a writer, editor and Chinese-English translator. Her fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in Clarkesworld, The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Grain, CV2, carte blancheandThe Tyee. She was a finalist for the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction and longlisted for the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award. Wang is a member of the Clarion West Writers Workshop 2020/2021. She is currently at work on a book-length speculative fiction short story collection inspired by Chinese folklore.

Entry in five-ish words

"Subversion through cooking and dialect."

The poem's source of inspiration

"As a member of the Sichuanese diaspora, my understanding of home and language is inseparable from my love of hot and spicy food. After encountering a wave of Chinese rap songs performed in the Sichuanhua dialect, I became interested in writing a poem about how one's relationship with food, code-switchingand language changes across time and distance.

My poem draws simultaneously on my struggles with home cooking and my thoughts on writing and translating as acts of reclamation and resistance.

"My poem draws simultaneously on my struggles with home cooking and my thoughts on writing and translating as acts of reclamation and resistance."

First lines

You must teach yourself how to carry loan words,
tiny seeds gifted-wrapped like hand-me-down
heirlooms as you crisscross past borders.
How do you cook a dish called
Hu Pi La Jiao, Tiger-Skin Hot Peppers,
when you only have bell peppers?
No planting guides exist for foreign veggies
that haven't yet grown roots and sprouted
overseas. No family recipes readied you
for the acrobatic dance of code-switching
from Sichuanhua to academic Mandarin
to every shade of English accent.

About the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize

The winner of the 2020CBCPoetry Prizewill receive $6,000 from theCanada Council for the Arts, have their work published onCBC Booksand attend a two-week writing residency at theBanff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand have their work published onCBC Books.

The 2021CBC Nonfiction Prizewill open in January. The 2021CBC Poetry Prizewill open in April.