Pulling a Dragon's Teeth

by Shao Wei, Shao Wei

There is a proverb in China, hu kou ba ya, literally “pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth,” used to describe any extremely difficult task. When Shao Wei first arrived in the United States at age thirty-one, her desire to write poems in English seemed almost impossible. Pulling a Dragon's Teeth, a first stop on the successful journey toward that goal, is filled with the rhythms and visions of this exciting young poet.

Shuttling between her childhood in a small mountain city on the shores of the Yangtze River (soon to be flooded by the Three Gorges Dam Project) and adulthood in Manhattan, Shao Weicaptures the pains and joys of tradition and displacement familiar to any immigrant. Blending fairy tales, New York images, family stories, and the universal rites of passage associated with growing up, she paints a vibrant canvas of passion and imagination.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

Reviews

[TheOriginalNikeGirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not too sure what to say about this book. I read it in the hopes that I would love it as much as Ada Limon's The Carrying, which is essentially why I read any modern poetry nowadays, and why I read modern poetry at all.

Based on that yardstick, this book disappointed. On its own merits? This collection roughly follows Wei growing up, insomuch as any poetry collection can "follow" a format--I think it did admirably well at that. Thematically, this collection focuses on the tension between a childhood spent in rural china versus a young adulthood in New York.

I personally found the latter two parts to be more thematically resonant and poetically engaging.

Idk how am I supposed to talk poetry when I neither love it nor hate it???

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite poems were “sunflower bitch” and “mountain river, and unfinished flowers”. The poems were overall good quality and well written but no lines or specific poems really struck me. The poems are mainly about her childhood in China, but have universal themes and tones about childhood and growing up, sex, and death. I liked her repeated symbolism of rotten fruit and chickens.