I chose to use the story “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan for my found poem. This story is mainly about a Chinese American girl, Amy, and her crush Robert’s visit to her house for Christmas dinner.

The main conflict of the story is an external conflict, especially the “Character vs. Society” struggle. Character vs. society conflict is a struggle between the character and a group of people, or with societal forces. In this story, the protagonist struggles and is embarrassed with her Chinese relatives and culture in front of her crush. This struggle is shown in my poem through the protagonist’s various words in the story. In the fourth line, there are words like “noisy” and “strange.” These words clearly tell us that the main character, Amy’s point of view towards her relatives and culture was not quite affirmative. In addition, in line eight, it states: “despair,” “shame,” and “stunned into silence.” These terms show Amy’s feelings to her family and culture was not positive. Lastly, in the last line, it says, “I wanted to disappear.” This statement indicates that she is embarrassed of her Chinese identity and family, only because her crush grimaced at them. I drew some wavy, circle lines; wind; and sharp lines to support my poem. I mainly drew images for the key words that expressed Amy’s feelings and conflicts. Furthermore, I used white background and used black for all the drawings, because I thought the black color would suited and express Amy’s gloomy and cheerless feelings very well.

 

  • For more information about the author (Amy Tan), click here
  • For more information about the book, click here