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Yale Series of Younger Poets
Picture Bride
The winning volume in the 1982 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Cathy Song’s Picture Bride , a book about people and their innumerable journeys. Distinguished poet Richard Hugo says, “Cathy Song’s poems are colorful, sensual, and quiet, and they are offered almost shyly as bouquets to those moments in life that seemed minor but in retrospect count the most. She often reminds a loud, indifferent, hard world of what truly matters to the human spirit.”
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1955, Cathy Song received a B.A. from Wellesley College in 1977 and an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University in 1981. Her poems have appeared in an anthology of asian-pacific literature and in Dark Horse, The Greenfield Review, and West Branch .
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1955, Cathy Song received a B.A. from Wellesley College in 1977 and an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University in 1981. Her poems have appeared in an anthology of asian-pacific literature and in Dark Horse, The Greenfield Review, and West Branch .
89 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1983
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
July 22, 2010
I think I'm too full of resentment and impatience to ever write a book like this. These poems are delicate, intricate, and individualized as thumbprints on a glass. Childhood recollections and family photo-album memories are their main themes. As I read, I frequently found myself wishing that Song's voice was more openly rebellious; almost all the short lyrics in "Picture Bride" struck me as frustratingly placid and passive. Except for the last section of one long poem about Georgia O'Keeffe, there is not much anger or liberated passion flying around in these pages. Though many of these poems deal with subject matter that *ought* to arouse rage (e.g., women oppressed by men, or daughters smothered by hyper-controlling mothers), the main feeling that this book exudes is not indignation or even resignation; rather, this book radiates a stillness, a sort of contentment, which left me uneasy and unsatisfied.
Nonetheless, the imagery here is vivid and compact, and Song's way with words is lovely. I'd rather read poems like these than the colorless, quasi-abstract poems penned by imitators of Louise Gluck or Mark Strand, any day. I especially enjoyed one passage in which Song describes how her child-self was enchanted by the sight of "clean starched sheets/stacked like envelopes or tortillas./I made no distinctions;/for me, everything was edible."
Nonetheless, the imagery here is vivid and compact, and Song's way with words is lovely. I'd rather read poems like these than the colorless, quasi-abstract poems penned by imitators of Louise Gluck or Mark Strand, any day. I especially enjoyed one passage in which Song describes how her child-self was enchanted by the sight of "clean starched sheets/stacked like envelopes or tortillas./I made no distinctions;/for me, everything was edible."
July 30, 2024
For the girls who eat up some flowery verse.
April 8, 2013
I liked the Georgia O'Keefe poems in this collection.
Some excerpts I liked from other pieces:
The light is the inside
sheen of an oyster shell,
sponged with talc and vapor,
moisture from a bath . . .
. . . the nape of her neck
and the curve of a shoulder
like the slope of a hill
set deep in snow in a country
of huge white solemn birds.
Her face appears in the mirror,
a reflection in a winter pond,
rising to meet itself . . .
. . . Two chrysanthemums
touch in the middle of the lake
and drift apart.
Girl Powdering Her Neck
. . . the daughters were grateful:
they never left home . . .
But they traveled far
in surviving,
learning to stretch the family rice,
to quiet the demons,
the noisy stomachs.
Lost Sister
Some excerpts I liked from other pieces:
The light is the inside
sheen of an oyster shell,
sponged with talc and vapor,
moisture from a bath . . .
. . . the nape of her neck
and the curve of a shoulder
like the slope of a hill
set deep in snow in a country
of huge white solemn birds.
Her face appears in the mirror,
a reflection in a winter pond,
rising to meet itself . . .
. . . Two chrysanthemums
touch in the middle of the lake
and drift apart.
Girl Powdering Her Neck
. . . the daughters were grateful:
they never left home . . .
But they traveled far
in surviving,
learning to stretch the family rice,
to quiet the demons,
the noisy stomachs.
Lost Sister
August 13, 2020
I had to read a number of the pieces from “Picture Bride” for a class, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. Thereafter I read it in it’s entirety and I found themes of an Americanizing immigrant asian family to be plentiful. Intergenerational cultural shifts, assimilation, family, marriage, coming of age, and aging itself are all explored in Picture Bride.
The poetry herein is free form, allowing for particular world building. As this was my first significant experience with this style, it was a bit challenging at times, but I found a lot of meaning in the potentially unfamiliar structure. I think this gave it a refreshing distinction from other tales of immigrant families, for as a member of one I had read plenty of them.
In addition, the copy I got was already annotated by some past student, and I really enjoyed not only experiencing the poetry, but some unknown peers analysis simultaneously. A great experience; beautifully crafted prose.
The poetry herein is free form, allowing for particular world building. As this was my first significant experience with this style, it was a bit challenging at times, but I found a lot of meaning in the potentially unfamiliar structure. I think this gave it a refreshing distinction from other tales of immigrant families, for as a member of one I had read plenty of them.
In addition, the copy I got was already annotated by some past student, and I really enjoyed not only experiencing the poetry, but some unknown peers analysis simultaneously. A great experience; beautifully crafted prose.
October 22, 2025
altogether a beautiful and candid collection, exploring the author's relationships with mother, father, grandfather. speaks to the truth of what it means to emigrate and hold hope for a family's past, present, and future.
October 28, 2008
i am not a poetry person. free verse usually turns me off. but i absolutely loved this volume of poetry. song writes best when she writes about those close to her, her brother, her father, her mother. reading these poems was sometimes heart-warming and sometimes heart-breaking, but always a memorable experience.
July 10, 2016
I loved the quiet voice and warmth in these poems. Very powerful!
May 2, 2025
The Youngest Daughter
'The sky has been dark
for many years.
My skin has become as damp
and pale as rice paper
and feels the way
mother’s used to before the drying sun
parched it out there in the fields.
Lately, when I touch my eyelids,
my hands react as if
I had just touched something
hot enough to burn.
My skin, aspirin colored,
tingles with migraine. Mother
has been massaging the left side of my face
especially in the evenings
when the pain flares up.
This morning
her breathing was graveled,
her voice gruff with affection
when I wheeled her into the bath.
She was in a good humor,
making jokes about her great breasts,
floating in the milky water
like two walruses,
flaccid and whiskered around the nipples.
I scrubbed them with a sour taste
in my mouth, thinking:
six children and an old man
have sucked from these brown nipples.
I was almost tender
when I came to the blue bruises
that freckle her body,
places where she has been injecting insulin
for thirty years. I soaped her slowly,
she sighed deeply, her eyes closed.
It seems it has always
been like this: the two of us
in this sunless room,
the splashing of the bathwater.
In the afternoons
when she has rested,
she prepares our ritual of tea and rice,
garnished with a shred of gingered fish,
a slice of pickled turnip,
a token for my white body.
We eat in the familiar silence.
She knows I am not to be trusted,
even now planning my escape.
As I toast to her health
with the tea she has poured,
a thousand cranes curtain the window,
fly up in a sudden breeze.'
'The sky has been dark
for many years.
My skin has become as damp
and pale as rice paper
and feels the way
mother’s used to before the drying sun
parched it out there in the fields.
Lately, when I touch my eyelids,
my hands react as if
I had just touched something
hot enough to burn.
My skin, aspirin colored,
tingles with migraine. Mother
has been massaging the left side of my face
especially in the evenings
when the pain flares up.
This morning
her breathing was graveled,
her voice gruff with affection
when I wheeled her into the bath.
She was in a good humor,
making jokes about her great breasts,
floating in the milky water
like two walruses,
flaccid and whiskered around the nipples.
I scrubbed them with a sour taste
in my mouth, thinking:
six children and an old man
have sucked from these brown nipples.
I was almost tender
when I came to the blue bruises
that freckle her body,
places where she has been injecting insulin
for thirty years. I soaped her slowly,
she sighed deeply, her eyes closed.
It seems it has always
been like this: the two of us
in this sunless room,
the splashing of the bathwater.
In the afternoons
when she has rested,
she prepares our ritual of tea and rice,
garnished with a shred of gingered fish,
a slice of pickled turnip,
a token for my white body.
We eat in the familiar silence.
She knows I am not to be trusted,
even now planning my escape.
As I toast to her health
with the tea she has poured,
a thousand cranes curtain the window,
fly up in a sudden breeze.'
January 7, 2021
Resonated a lot with Song's descriptions of family and identity across cultures, across oceans. Love how she writes poetry that speaks in nature metaphors because I do that too lol. (If you see this, @Sarah and @Elizabeth, thank you for the book <3)
My favorite lines:
"There is a sister/across the ocean,/who relinquished her name,/diluting jade green/with the blue of the Pacific."
"You find you need China:/your one fragile identification,/a jade link/handcuffed to your wrist."
"You remember your mother/who walked for centuries,/footless–/and like her,/you have left no footprints,/but only because/there is an ocean between,/the unrelenting space of your rebellion."
My favorite lines:
"There is a sister/across the ocean,/who relinquished her name,/diluting jade green/with the blue of the Pacific."
"You find you need China:/your one fragile identification,/a jade link/handcuffed to your wrist."
"You remember your mother/who walked for centuries,/footless–/and like her,/you have left no footprints,/but only because/there is an ocean between,/the unrelenting space of your rebellion."
May 14, 2024
But in another wilderness,
the possibilities,
the loneliness,
can strangulate like jungle vines.
The meager provisions and sentiments
of once belonging —
fermented roots, Mah-Jongg tiles and firecrackers —
set but a flimsy household
in a forest of nightless cities.
/
I realize what power we wielded
when we were young.
Sleep meant pretending. Lying still
but alert, I listened from the next room
as my mother slipped out of her damp dress.
The cloth crumpling onto the bedroom floor
made a light, sad sound.
/
Someone very quiet once lived here.
the possibilities,
the loneliness,
can strangulate like jungle vines.
The meager provisions and sentiments
of once belonging —
fermented roots, Mah-Jongg tiles and firecrackers —
set but a flimsy household
in a forest of nightless cities.
/
I realize what power we wielded
when we were young.
Sleep meant pretending. Lying still
but alert, I listened from the next room
as my mother slipped out of her damp dress.
The cloth crumpling onto the bedroom floor
made a light, sad sound.
/
Someone very quiet once lived here.
May 27, 2020
Song’s poems capture the nostalgia of growing up. Each poem is seen as a memory, passing by memory lane. Reading through, you reflect and visit your own childhood and live through it once more. If you are into reading great depths of one’s life, this one is for you.
October 14, 2018
"Someone very quiet once lived here."
Very beautiful, simple poetic style. Cathy Song's poetry is captivating and so multi-faceted with hidden depths that every new glance could reap something new.
Very beautiful, simple poetic style. Cathy Song's poetry is captivating and so multi-faceted with hidden depths that every new glance could reap something new.
October 21, 2020
Some absolute gems: quite, delicate, like my grandmother, humming softly with black and white memories of the jade fields
October 7, 2022
quiet and reflective, on motherhood and girlhood and one's place in time and space
March 14, 2023
Absolutely beautiful poetry. Such strong images and quiet words. I first read this collection in college and am so glad I remember so many of her poems.
October 11, 2023
“someone very quiet once lived here.”
July 8, 2024
Great imagery
February 28, 2013
I just don't like poetry - don't take my rating too seriously. :)
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews