Waking Spirit
by Shirley Cheng
Published by Dance with Your Heart! Publishing(to come)
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Reviewed by Beth Cummings
Subtitled: Prose & Poems the Spirit Sings
That Shirley Cheng can write prose and poetry in English is rather amazing since she grew up in a home where Chinese was the first language. That she writes poetry with a good eye for imagery is also unusual since she has been blind since age seventeen. That her prose is unfailingly upbeat is also remarkable given that she has suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis since she was less than a year old and has undergone a variety of treatments both in the U.S. and in China that have had only minimal success.
Nonetheless, Shirley Cheng does write--typing by the two-finger method. I found her haiku to be the strongest part of her book. Haiku, a seventeen syllable Japanese form of poetry, has a distinctive 5-7-5 syllable count in its three lines and usually depicts some aspect of nature. Shirley Cheng has the form well in hand and her verses often have a delightful twist. For example:
Stormy clouds munching
On round yellow moon, leaving
A half-eaten cheese.
Her longer poems are songs to and of the "spirit," but they don't capture images as well as the pithy haiku. For example in "The Midnight Dances" she writes,
"Under the velvety night
Amid the bright spotlight
In the silence, leaves stir
Among the red silver fur
Little hearts awake
Their spirits cannot forsake
Their nightly delight
Under the bright moonlight"
I find that the words sound good, but don't seem to say much of anything. I felt that the haiku were much stronger.
I had much the same opinion of her prose pieces. They do tell her life story and express her overflowing optimism. But one piece would have been enough to include in this volume. They seem to be repetitious in both phraseology and sentiment. For me, at least, this detracted from the effectiveness of what was being said.
Armchair Interviews says: Shirley Cheng may not be a great writer (and this book really needed editing), but she does project a positive outlook on life that is noteworthy.
Author's Web site: http://www.ShirleyCheng.com