Jane Wong is the author of the memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City (Tin House, 2023). She also wrote two poetry collections: How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James, 2021) and Overpour (Action Books, 2016). Her poetry installations which engage haunting and nourishment have been exhibited at the Frye Art Museum, the Richmond Art Gallery, and the Asian Art Museum.
Jane’s pick for an Emily Dickinson poem:
They shut me up in Prose –
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet –
Because they liked me “still” –Still! Could themself have peeped –
And seen my Brain – go round –
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down upon Captivity –
And laugh – No more have I –J613; Fr 445; Fascicle 21, sheet 2 (late 1862)
And also this quote from her letter to Higginson: Letter 271 from August 1862.
“I had no Monarch in my life, and cannot rule myself, and when I try to organize - my little Force explodes - and leaves me bare and charred -
I think you called me ‘Wayward.’”
Lessons on Lessening
Jane WongI wake to the sound of my neighbors upstairs as if they are bowling.
And maybe they are, all pins and love fallen over.
I lie against my floor, if only to feel that kind of affection.What I’ve learned, time and again:
Get up. You cannot have what they have.And the eyes of a dead rat can’t say anything.
In Jersey, the sink breaks and my mother keeps a bucket
underneath to save water for laundry.A trick of water is no joke. I’ve learned that.
Neither is my father, wielding a knife in starlight.I was taught that everything and everyone is self-made.
That you can make a window out of anything if you want.
This is why I froze insects. To see if they will come back to life.How I began to see each day: the sluice of wings.
Get up. The ants pouring out of the sink, onto my arms in dish-heavy water.My arms: branches. A swarm I didn’t ask for.
No one told me I’d have to learn to be polite.
To let myself be consumed for what I cannot control.I must return to my younger self. To wearing my life
like heavy wool, weaved in my own weight.To pretend not to know when the debtors come to collect.
Other people and concepts referenced in the conversation:
The quote Jane references about a letter that did not make Dickinson “drunk” is this one that begins Letter 265, June 7, 1862 to Thomas Wentworth Higginson: “Your letter gave no Drunkenness, because I tasted Rum before- Domingo comes but once-yet I have had few pleasures so deep as your opinion, and if I tried to thank you, my tears would block my tongue -…”
(Federico Garcia) Lorca’s essay on duende
Lineation - a definition, and a couple brief essays (one and two) on the poetic line to mull over.
Lucille Clifton’s poem “won’t you celebrate with me”
won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha & her book Dictée
Video of Jane’s “The Long Labors” poem
Recorded May 8, 2026.
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