Cultural Distinctiveness in Monocultural Poetic Space: A Cross-Continental Analysis of the Poetry of Louise Ho and Rita Wong
Date
2023-06
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Abstract
This project examines selected poems written by Chinese Australian-Hong Kong poet Louise Ho, and Chinese Canadian poet Rita Wong. The point of convergence in the works of these poets is that both Ho and Wong are the prodigies of an East-West cultural clash. The works of Ho and Wong represent a cross-cultural, cross-continental diasporic experience that is shared by the Hong Kong population, as well as second-third generation immigrants of Canada. The identity crisis faced by the Hong Kong community is one that is often overlooked by postcolonial scholarships. After a 100-year colonial governance under British rule and a forceful turnover to the Chinese P.R.C. government in 1997, the identity crisis in postcolonial and post-handover Hong Kong is an existential agony in which the Hong Kong community is doubly entrapped, not merely in the dual nationality of British and Chinese, but also in an internal division within the culture itself as claims to narrative authority and cultural authenticity are central to the power dynamics between Hong Kong and Mainland China. Similarly, the existential agony faced by the second-third generation descendants of Chinese immigrants in Canada is one that delves in the uncertain space between the dominant white, Anglo-Saxon culture and the native home culture. North American cultural critics of Asian descent like Shu-Mei Shih, Rey Chow, Rita Wong, and Roy Miki, have all expressed concerns over the preservation (or lack thereof) of Asian cultural and language heritage in the predominately white literary space. The proximity between the Hong Kong population and second-third generation Chinese immigrants is that they are minority communities that struggle with preserving a culture-in-disappearance. In this light, my project intends to explore the following queries: How do these Chinese Canadian, Chinese Australian-Hong Kong poets carve out a space for identity validation and self-expression in the Anglo-Saxon poetic space? How do poets like Louise Ho and Rita Wong – themselves the prodigies of an East-West cultural clash – reconcile between their multifaceted identities? How do Ho and Wong reaffirm their self-identification through poetry?
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xenophone, Rey Chow, Rita Wong, cultural disctinctiveness, Louise Ho, Chinese Canadian poetry, North American disapora, cultural validation, Hong Kong poetry in English
Citation
Lau, I. S. (2023). Cultural distinctiveness in monocultural poetic space: a cross-continental analysis of the poetry of Louise Ho and Rita Wong (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.