Red

Abstract

Red Vivian Li (bio) Keywords poetry, Vivian, Li, Chinese characters, communism, Cultural Revolution, pollution 紫薯, a mother's boiling incense, herbal ginger tea山峰, summit of skies, an unwrapped shin almost fire-scalded redtobacco, whistling grey pipe of meshed 廣州 air and 1970s pollutionmy father dodging into villages with naked children, small mounds of dirt baked with stolen potatoes, red snakes threading my mother's inky bathleft-over stump of a pianist's right hand, devoured by red termites,civilization-stamped billets for a pound of salmon, a withering line of men stooped under the edge of something sweet called rebirth of our nation嫲嫲 four years of sharp calligraphy for four months of 團圓 soup flows through two bowls chipped, the third unuseda red mountain over soldiers shouting red slogans my ancestor teaching unpolished men to bomb flesh of young childrenMinisters once visited factories and called them vivacious productive movingtoo many mouths to feed, 婆婆 swaddles her baby in weightless blue, delivery to a red brick home, hoping to try for a boy this time [End Page 617] Vivian Li vivian (xiao wen) li is a queer writer, editor, musician, director, and interdisciplinary artist. Her poetry, fiction, and/or creative nonfiction can be found in League of Canadian Poets Anthology: In the Storm/Struggle, The Fiddlehead, filling station, CV2, and Vallum, among others. She was long-listed for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize, received honorable mentions from Muriel's Journey Poetry Prize, and was shortlisted for the Vancouver City Poems Contest. She is an editor for PRISM international. Her creative works engage with themes of Chinese-Canadian identity, mental health, and social justice. Copyright © 2022 The Massachusetts Review, Inc.