Friday, March 13, 2026: Jackie Chou's "America"

 

America 

“When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?”-Allen Ginsberg 

America I have exhausted my good looks 

at a dance studio in Eagle Rock

America I am no longer eighteen

dreaming of defending the innocent 

America your law school admission test

is too difficult for me

America I am on social security disability income 

that won't buy me an ice cream cone

America I subsist on instant coffee

America I am not hirable

because nobody wants a schizo-affective

Even if anyone does

I have no driving privilege 

to get to work 

America the public transportation 

in Los Angeles 

is inefficient 

America I hope no one stabs me from behind

like what happened to Iryna Zarutska 

America bless her angelic soul

America I am nobody 

and so nobody cares about

the flip of my skirt in the updraft 

America I am no Marilyn Monroe

© Jackie Chou

Jackie Chou (she/her) is a writer from Southern California who has two collections of poetry, The Sorceress and Finding My Heart in Love and Loss, published by cyberwit. Her poem "Formosa" was a finalist in the Stephen A DiBiase Poetry Prize. She also has poems published in Synchronized Chaos, The Ekphrastic Review, Panoply Zine, Alien Buddha Zine, and Spillwords.

Friday, August 15, 2024: Jackie Chou's "The Mother I Never Became"

 

If I were a mother

I would not be cool at all

I'd talk way too loud

even for dim sum

drop the shrimp dumpling

between my chopsticks

I'd not know new songs to sing

to the car radio 

belt out too much Green Day

not enough Olivia Rodrigo

I'd wear odd prints and sequins

from the Ross clearance racks

and have no job for my kids 

to tell their friends about 

I'd be the kind of mom

that makes her children say

"Why can't you be 

like other moms?"

© 2024 Jackie Chou

Jackie Chou holds a BA degree in Creative Writing from the University of Southern California, where she studied and held the position of vice president in a cultural organization, an experience she looks upon with nostalgia which still influences her poetry today. She has published two collections of poetry, The Sorceress, and Finding My Heart in Love and Loss.

Women's History Month: Monday, March 8, 2021: Jackie Chou's poem "Yes"

                                              photo by marie c lecrivain

Yes

 

I say "yes" 

because it feels smooth on my tongue

when I utter it

I like the way its vowel sound

makes my mouth form a smile

instead of an O

as in the word “no” 

I say "yes" 

because I want to be superwoman

who can meet any demand

that if you asked me for an eye

I could scoop it out of its socket

and grow another one 

and if you asked me for a hand

I’d take it quite literally

I say “yes”

because I have not yet learned

the peril behind it

when acted upon impulsively

and how a simple “no” 

can rescue me 

from its sweet disasters

© 2021 Jackie Chou

Jackie Chou writes poetry because it makes life more colorful.  It turns the common birds and flowers of the urban landscape where she has lived all her life into heroes.  Her poem "Cycle of a Tree" was nominated for a Pushcart by Highland Park Poetry.