Interview with Nicole Wan-Ting Lee, Winner of the 2024 Previously Published Poem Prize
Winner of the 2024 Previously Published Poem Prize
Nicole Wan-Ting Lee for “Deluge: A Chinese Almanac” — first published in Gulf Coast
Nicole W. Lee was born in Sydney, Australia to Chinese Malaysian parents. Her poetry has been published in Agni, Crazyhorse (now swamp pink), Gulf Coast, Meanjin, and wildness, and has received fellowships and scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Tin House Summer and Winter Workshops, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, AWP, and Miami Book Fair. Currently she’s a poetry candidate in the low-residency MFA at Warren Wilson College and associate poetry editor at Four Way Review.
Of the winning poem, Palette editors said:
This poem immediately invited us into a lush folktale told by a deft poet. The experience of reading “Deluge: A Chinese Almanac” feels both like drowning and being rescued. The characters are both modern and ancient, and Nicole Wan-Ting Lee has successfully blended deep emotional moments with epic abstractions. It’s a joy to celebrate this previously published poem and share it with an even wider audience!
Interview with Nicole Wan-Ting Lee
by Marcella Haddad
Marcella Haddad: Tell us about the original folk tale of Yé Xiàn. What inspired you to respond to it through poetry?
Nicole Wan-Ting Lee: Yé Xiàn 葉限 is a Chinese folk tale about a young girl whose father dies, leaving her in the care of an evil stepmother. Aided by a carp-spirit and magical wishing bones, Yé Xiàn attends a ball where she loses her golden slipper and falls in love with a prince. While the version recorded in Yǒu Yáng Zá Zǔ 酉陽雜俎 (“Miscellaneous Morsels from Yǒu Yáng”) by 9th century poet Duàn Chéng Shì 段成式, was possibly of Zhuàng 壯 origin, an ethnic group of China, there are versions of the story all across East and South East Asia, including Tibet, Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. It’s almost certain that in the 16th century, Jesuits took the book to Europe, where the story was translated into Italian, then French, to become the version of Cinderella we know today.
At the time of writing the poem, I was interested in reinterpreting the stories of Chinese female historical characters and myths as a way of rewriting myself into my cultural heritage, which I’ve been disconnected from through migration. While going down an internet rabbit hole, I stumbled across this folk tale and knew I had to reclaim Yé Xiàn and her origin story. I was also thinking a lot about Chinese flood myths, mother-daughter relationships, climate change, female sexual agency, and seasons, and so naturally these obsessions also made their way into the poem.
Haddad: How did the form of this poem evolve? Did you have an outline, or did you respond to each of the solar terms one by one?
Lee: The Chinese lunisolar calendar breaks down the year into 24 solar terms which correspond with seasonal changes or astronomical events. Used for over 3000 years, they mark agricultural activities, festivals, seasonal changes, and rituals. Because of the annual cycle, originally I wanted to write a poem that included all 24 solar terms. However it became clear after a few tries that I would only make it to 12! Also, as someone who grew up in a warm and humid climate, spring and summer seemed more compelling. It’s possible I might one day complete the cycle with autumn and winter, but that’s a future project.
Once I decided on the 12, I began making my way through the narrative of the folk tale. Eventually I found giving each smaller poem a theme that connected to the events or symbols of the solar term helped me work out which parts belonged in which poem, for example, Chinese medicine in “谷雨 ∙ Grain Rain,” silkworms in “小满 ∙ A Little Riper,” and the lotus flower in “大暑 ∙ Great Heat.” In terms of the poem’s shape, after settling on the prose poem form, I decided to format the smaller poems as long oblongs so they resembled the ancestral tablets used in East Asian culture to venerate family members who have passed in order to echo Yé Xiàn’s veneration of her mother.
Haddad: What is your favorite part of this poem?
Lee: No one part! I love how all the poems work synergistically together to create a whole. Although if I had to choose, I love the visual disintegration of the final smaller poem.
Haddad: What was the most difficult part of writing this poem?
Lee: The ending! The poem’s plot wasn’t difficult to invent, as I had both the narrative events of the original folk tale and the solar terms to lean on. And as I went along, I would of course add my own spin on things. Interestingly, in Yé Xiàn, the prince – or king, as it were – was an evil guy, as opposed to Cinderella’s handsome prince, since he wanted Yé Xiàn’s wishing bones to gain wealth for himself. So in many ways this poem hews more closely to the original.
But back to the poem’s ending – I had come to the point of descent in “大暑 ∙ Great Heat,” but it seemed lackluster. I ended up sharing the poem with my group at the Tin House Winter Workshop, and during a break chatted to a friend of mine who was also attending – the brilliant poet Alison Zheng! – about visual poetry. After our chat it seemed impossible not to see how to end the poem – that Yé Xiàn’s sadness and regret could only lead to a moment beyond words. Plus the descending text echoing Yé Xiàn’s physical descent into the mud perfectly reflected the poem’s themes. So I set about designing its visual text and that weekend I knew I’d finished the poem.
Haddad: Tell us about the revision process. Did you receive any notes or feedback that changed the direction of this poem as you were developing it?
Lee: Yes, absolutely. As I mentioned, at the time of writing I was interested in exploring historical characters and myth. While researching, I came across a poem called “The Clearing” by Allison Adair. This short poem in couplets was a stunning lyric retelling of Red Riding Hood, so when I came across Yé Xiàn, I thought I’d give it a similar treatment. But during a class with Eduardo C. Corral, he suggested that the poem, which was focused on the moment Yé Xiàn left the ball, was only working at the level of retelling, rather than re-contextualization. By then I had learned about the 24 solar terms, and read Franny Choi’s exquisite “Perihelion: A History of Touch,” which was based on the Farmer’s Almanac. I’d also read Victoria Chang’s Obit, and was keen to try some prose poems. So all of those influences together, along with a good helping of a high school and college education system obsessed with Shakespeare, led to me giving the poem another shot. Oddly, once I decided on the prose poem sequence form, the new, re-contextualized elements seemed to appear without much effort (Yé Xiàn as a carp-girl, the mother-daughter relationship, Yé Xiàn eating the prince, the flood). I also wanted to point to the origin story of Cinderella without saying that it was Cinderella, so in revisions I tried to highlight elements that were true to Yé Xiàn (the evil prince, the mother-fish, the wishing bones), and also those well-known in Cinderella (the blue dress, the fairy godmother element, the ball).
Haddad: Who are some writers who inspire or influence your work?
Lee: As mentioned above, this poem is definitely in conversation with Allison Adair, Franny Choi, Victoria Chang, and Shakespeare. In addition to these poets, these days I’m also inspired by Etel Adnan, Jenny Xie, Hala Alyan, Bhanu Kapil, Harryette Mullen, Anne Carson, Bei Dao, Sohrab Sepehri, Ghayath Almadhoun, Jennifer S. Cheng, Eduardo C. Corral, Natalie Diaz, Brandon Som, Layli Long Soldier, Solmaz Sharif, and the 8th to 9th century Tang dynasty Chinese poets, especially Lǐ Hè 李賀 and Lǐ Shāng Yǐn 李商隱. Some exciting Australian poets for me include Nam Le, Mindy Gill, and Bella Li.
Haddad: What advice do you have for other poets?
Lee: Follow, follow your weird obsessions! Go down odd internet rabbit holes, because you never know where they’ll lead you. Push past the first ending, the second, the third, and the fourth, because what enters after emptiness will surprise you. Read widely and in translation. Go deep and brief. At the same time, resist the myth of productivity. An image might enter a year later, and you’ll know then the poem is done. Most of all, be kind – to yourself, your poems, and to others. There’s always time to try again tomorrow.