Author: The Wild Grain

Poem of the Month: Come to the Sea by Lana Nguyen

Come to The Sea

i want to be beautiful like the ocean
the kind of beauty
that reminds you of your own
a mirror, a glimpse

like staring into yourself
like scooping from within
let grains of sand slip through
to drag you towards me

i want to be beautiful
the kind of beauty
that brings clarity and alertness
as you dive right in

salty air and salty tongue
take a dip, take a dive
hold tight onto the tides
when you think of me

do you think of me?

with seafoam and seaweed
strewn along my back
seashells pressed onto sand
wind fluttering through my hair

do you think of me?

i want to be beautiful like the ocean
the kind of beauty
that you want to take as your own
a home, a space

somewhere you want to stay
somewhere you can’t leave

can you sink into me
can you think of me
can you see me

an ocean so blue

an ocean i left to you

 

Lana Nguyen is a freshman at Rice from Houston, Texas. She is majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing. When she’s not nerding out about her newest read, you can find her chugging coffee or eating bowls of ice cream in a single sitting.

Video Essay: “DIASPORA”

In this stunning video essay, “DIASPORA,” Sanvitti Sahdev, Kelly Park, and Joyce Chen meditate upon the intimate threads that weave the complex webs of their transnational identities. Considering their relationship to diaspora, Asia, America, and “home,” they craft a profoundly nuanced portrait of the complicated ties that can at times bind, while at other times connect. This project was created in Prof. Marte-Wood’s “21st-Century Asian American Literature and Racial Formation” course.

(If you experience playback issues, click the “pop-out” button to view in a new window.)

 

Sanvitti Sahdev grew up in Delhi, India and currently lives in Houston, Texas. Since graduating from Rice, she has been working as a freelancer in the literary publishing world and trying to make it as a writer.

 

Joyce Chen graduated in 2020 as a member of McMurtry College. While at Rice, she was a Trustee Distinguished Scholar and Century Scholar and majored in English and Asian Studies.

Kelly Park is a Rice University alumna (class of 2021) and was at Jones college during her time at Rice. During her undergrad years, she studied Computer Science and English. Having grown up in Seoul, Houston, and the Bay Area, Kelly is interested in disasporic experiences, class disparities, and how film serves as a tool for conveying these ideas. She exploded this in her Senior thesis, “From Parasite to Minari: Understanding Class Disparities, Imperialism, and Transnational Identities through the Globalization of Korean and Korean-American Film.” Since graduating from Rice, Kelly has been working as a software engineer in the Bay Area.