Chen ’17 Awarded Runner-Up for 2016 Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize

Last year, senior Carissa Chen was running down Swasey Parkway alone in the dark when she found herself recalling vivid memories of her grandfather’s stories of World War II and the Cultural Revolution of China. She returned to her room Merrill Hall and wrote three separate poems that would eventually merge into a piece that reflected her grandfather’s stories “of the dangers of fascist state, of propaganda, of war.”

The Kenyon Review, a prestigious literary magazine based at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, published senior Carissa Chen’s poem, Parable, in their November/December issue this year. Her piece was published after she won a runner-up position in the Kenyon Review’s Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers. Chen received a letter in the mail notifying her of the magazine’s plan to publish her poem, alongside a copy for her to proofread for corrections and formatting details. Chen’s parents’ and grandparents’ tales of the Cultural Revolution of China inspired her to write the poem, that she said focused on the “oppression of women and the desensitization that characterized [her family members’] experiences.”

Chen’s love of storytelling was built on a foundation of childhood memories with her family, specifically with her grandfather. “Sitting by our blue formica kitchen table, he’d lift his wrinkled hands and describe his hometown of Nanjing, where the soft slab mud swallowed sick soldiers whole,” she said.

Chen explained that this poem emerged from the stories that her mother and grandmother once told her about World War II and the Cultural Revolution. Once, Chairman Mao’s Red Guards raided her grandmother’s home in Nanjing, China and burned every book in the house. “Those who were killed by the soldiers would just be piled up or left hanging or in the dirt,” she said, recalling a startling image that she could not get out of her head.

“I feel so grateful to the teachers at Exeter for encouraging me to publish my poetry.”

It was not until Chen visited her sick grandfather back in Nanjing that the stories became ingrained in her head, and she felt compelled to put them down on paper. She couldn’t let go of the images that her relatives handed down to her. “It was horrible to imagine,” she said.

Chen said that Exeter has helped her transform from a middle school girl who wrote in the privacy of her journal to a developing professional writer. She explained that as the daughter of two engineers, she was often told that art and writing were not important. However, as she took classes at Exeter such as Art and the State and discovered the works of poets such as Maya Angelou and Audre Lorde, Chen said she became more aware of art’s “emotional and societal” significance.

She said she never considered publishing her more serious works for others to read until she joined Pendulum, Exeter’s literary arts journal. Chen also found inspiration to write her poems more seriously after reading Alice Ju’s and David Leonard’s poetry her prep year, both of whom graduated in 2014. Surprisingly, Chen had a rough start with Exeter English classes, receiving her lowest grades ever in her first term. After the initial discouragement, Chen’s determination to improve her writing only grew. She expressed gratitude towards a number of faculty such as English instructors Matthew Miller, Mercy Carbonell, Erica Lazure and Rebecca Moore. “I feel so grateful to the teachers at Exeter for encouraging me to publish my poetry,” she said.

Early in her prep year, Chen developed a friendship with Margaux Morris ’16. The two both lived in Merrill Hall and shared a love of art and writing. “It’s honestly an honor that she’s been asking me to edit her papers since prep fall, and it didn’t take long for me to start sending her mine, as well,” Morris said. Morris felt that she is “definitely not unique” in thinking that Carissa is one of the strongest writers she has met at Exeter. “We both keep journals full of freeform writing, quick doodles, impromptu painting, to do lists, multimedia collages and pretty much everything,” Morris said. 

Although Morris graduated last spring, they still see each other often, and when they do, they read each others’ recent work. “Whenever we see each other after long times apart, the first thing we do is exchange notebooks and read through them together,” she said.

Faculty members also recognized Chen’s talent and achievements as a writer. Last winter, Chen was in Miller’s English 320 class. Miller said he worked with her to further develop her writing, but he explained that for the most part, he tried to stay out of the way of her talent. “I think the best thing a teacher can sometimes is give a student room to fail and stumble around a bit until they find their own way and their own voice. And Carissa is fully dedicated to doing that,” Miller said. Chen wrote her poem before Miller’s class, and the slow process of publication finally landed her poem in The Kenyon Review. In the classroom, Miller said that Chen is a hard worker and enthusiastic participant, eager to share her ideas with other students and dig deeper into the text.

Her writing was also recognized and commended by competitions such as the Scholastic Art and Writing awards.  “Her style is so distinctive across mediums; she has an artistic core that is channeled into whichever form she chooses,” Morris said. Morris acknowledged Chen as one of the best writers she has met while at Exeter, especially when she combines visual art and writing in a formal fashion. Miller admires her writing skills as well as her development of craft and technique during her time at Exeter. “Carissa is the real deal. A poet and artist of great talent and wonderful potential,” he said.

Chen felt that writing poetry was a natural way for her to express her thoughts and connect with the aspects of her life she would not necessarily address in a classroom setting. She said that although publishing the poem hasn’t necessarily changed her as a person, the writing process affected her. “It made me face and reconcile my Chinese-American identity more,” she said. 

PARABLE

Nanjing, China—1966, Cultural Revolution

          1

Peony petals lace the Nanjing streets, ripped in pink dissolve,

And here, my soldier spits the wad of dope from his mouth mindlessly.

      And here, he holds the hem of her honeyblue cheongsam silk, counts

the hooks, and trails perfect circles as a prophet down her neck. Listen: then soften.

            And this is where sin blooms: no wind, no songs,

                                    red trees, no roots.

            And this is where names run and rot

                                    the forest renders all things nameless.

            And this is where lovers come to sleep, where my soldier, my father,

holds my forbidden mother’s chapped lips,

   Drink

      and she pulls

   her blue dress

                his black hair

and

      their bodies: two pale trees by moonlight.

            2                       

          My mother used to run like this:

      sexless                                                     

                  and screaming things only birds loved.   

                     all things the women have abandoned over the years.

Nanjing and my mother drinks amnesia like red wine,   

replaces reality with Ritalin:                

Give her a marker

      and she’ll draw you God.

Give her a willow

                a nd she’ll make you a crown.

              Give her a Bible and

        she’ll make you a mirror.

3

      there’s a willow tree across the Yangtze River from my home that will sing you half-curses, half-lullabies.

and a boy who joined the red guards at school told me that my father died underneath her branches a hundred months before,

the long rope-like leaves around his neck, nature’s noose.

      And he takes me there tonight. Here is your father, the boy shows me, digging bare nails into raw mulch and pulling something half-human half-deity from between trees roots:

      And his eyes were open, perfect circles traced a million times over

            opened, arid, dry: no tears for a dead man’s repose.

            And the noose cracked his Adam’s apple, a thousand year’s revenge from Eden.

      And the plaque was foam from the Yangtze River.

            And the jade cross around his wrist caught what little light stolen from the moon.

      And his skin was so, so soft, so smooth, touching it made our five-year-old hands’ weak skin feel human.

            And his lips are forever ripped apart into a smile.

And so the boy took me home into

the long dark night, our small bare feet skipping, fingers interlaced and arms

      swinging,

            swinging.

                        And we laughed and sang songs—the East is red the East is red [1]

Listen: my father’s head is swinging from the tree,

                       singing songs of lost gods and how good men become good

               soldiers and blind deities.

Note

[1] Chinese Communist propaganda song taught as a child’s chant.