Folding Won Tons in Analysis

“Folding Won Tons In”- Abraham “Abe” Chang Abraham Chang is a Chinese-American poet and musician born in Queens, New York. He attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and spent his college years in Boston. In 1998, Abe received an Academy of American Poets Prize. Soon after, he returned to New York to attend the MFA program at the University of New York. During this program, he was given the opportunity to work with multiple award-winning poets like Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, Donald Hall, and Philip Levine. Often times, Abe’s songs or poems tell of redemption or heartbreak. Also, he incorporates humor, wit, and joy into his poems. Also, Abraham’s poetry has been published in the journals of Turf University and Columbia University. Abraham uses a very personifying vocabulary. The diction of the poem is very self-depreciating because they imply unskillfulness or incompetence. “I seasoned the pork like I imagine my mother would.” In this quote, he is attempting to mimic someone he believes to have accomplished a task correctly. However, words like ‘imperfectly’ show that he is concentrating on the little details much too seriously. He simply chopped the scallions unevenly, yet he had to describe them as imperfect. Which of course they are, but his use of this word implies that he was striving for perfection on his first attempt to make won tons. “Sheets of doughy skin, I only have the skill to buy.” Again, here he is degrading his own skill by saying that he is only capable of buying the sheets of the skin when he needs to be able to fold them as well. In the quote, “Mimicking from memory,” again he implies that he is striving for excellence which implies that he has very high standards set for himself. This could be related to theme later on because the reason for his high standards might be due to family pride or honor. Near the ending, the diction of the poem changed. The quote “…to seal my misshapen flowers,” and the words “new blossom…Newborns huddled,”