Chinese Blackbird

Critical Acclaim for Sherry Quan Lee's Chinese Blackbird
"Quan Lee eloquently expresses how painful and confusing it can be to
embrace the many complex identities that one body can contain. With
evocative imagery and words that cut straight to the heart, Quan Lee
details her lifelong struggles with both the vagaries and concreteness of
race, class, gender and sexual identity. Her guilt and shame are palpable.
But so too are her emotional and intellectual triumphs. Like a favorite sad
song when we have been dumped by the love of our lives, this volume
will be oddly comforting to anyone who has ever been overcome by that
sorrow which seems insurmountable."
--Eden Torres, Assistant Professor Women's Studies, Chicano Studies, University of Minnesota
"It's been a long time since I've been treated to a voice so full of honesty
about one's struggle to come to terms with her identity. Through
elegant poetry, full of exquisite imagery and detail, Quan Lee takes the
reader on her personal, transformative journey in which she explores how
race, class, gender and sexual identity inform who she is. Along the way,
she encounters rocks and boulders that would have stopped many of us.
Instead, she turns them over and examines the creatures hiding in the
darkness underneath, leaving no stone on her path unturned. Quan Lee
is a courageous woman. She is one of my sheroes."
--Carolyn Holbrook, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Dept. of English,
Founder and past Artistic/Executive Director of SASE: The Write Place
"In Chinese Blackbird, Sherry Quan Lee renders stories of her complex cultural
heritage with the lyrical touch of a poet coming into self-possession.
Through the generative power of language, Lee creates an inspirational and
a multifarious self. This self blows breath unto the page and into the reader,
who may have felt quiescent or invisible, often feeling forced to choose
among various enriching worlds, until she experiences the truth that only
good literature can unveil about the joys and struggles of defining oneself on
one's terms."
--Pamela R. Fletcher, Associate Professor of English
Co-Director of Critical Studies in Race and Ethnicity, College of St. Catherine
Learn more about the author at www.SherryQuanLee.com
Book #3 in the Reflections of History Series from Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com
Modern History Press is an imprint of Loving Healing Press