REQUIEM FOR MY PRE-COVID19 LIFE, OR KEEP YOUR WORRIES IN HERE by MELINDA LUISA DE JESUS

Requiem for my Pre-COVID19 Life, or Keep Your Worries in Here

By Melinda Luisa de Jesús

(July 2020)

Size: 1.5” x 3”

The Miniature Book Library is delighted to welcome a book sculpture containing a poem by Melinda Luisa de Jesús! We think it quite clever, and welcome this tin-bound accordion book to the collection!

About the Project

When we asked Melinda for some background to her book, she replied:

How I decided to create the CBD tin minibook: procrastination is the mother of invention! I am trying to finish a bear of an academic essay, but found myself making lots of other poems and flash fiction instead. Since I was a little kid I've been obsessed with little containers like the BREEZ CBD one (which [husband] Bob thinks is hilarious because his last name is TINSman) so I've been collecting them during this pandemic as I've tried to self-dose my insomnia. I finally had to get some Ambien but that's another story...anyway! I had started the list of things I missed as I was going to put it all in the little book you sent me and MT; after the poem manifested itself I realized it needed to be placed in the tin itself, like one would do with worry dolls. I'm sure it's not the last poetic sculpture I'll make as we ride out this insane moment in time. Thank god for the availability of cannabis in CA!

Here is Melinda's poem (click on images to enlarge):

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Melinda Luisa de Jesús is Associate Professor and former Chair of Diversity Studies at California College of the Arts. She writes and teaches about Filipinx/American cultural production, girl culture, monsters, and race/ethnicity in the United States. She edited Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory, the first anthology of Filipina/American feminisms (Routledge 2005). Her academic writing has appeared in Mothering in East Asian Communities: Politics and Practices; Completely Mixed Up: Mixed Heritage Asian North American Writing and Art; Approaches to Teaching Multicultural Comics; Ethnic Literary Traditions in Children’s Literature; Challenging Homophobia; Radical Teacher; The Lion and the Unicorn; Ano Ba Magazine; Rigorous; Konch Magazine; Rabbit and Rose; MELUS; Meridians; The Journal of Asian American Studies, and Delinquents and Debutantes: Twentieth- Century American Girls’ Cultures. 

She is also a poet and her chapbooks, Humpty Drumpfty and Other Poems; Petty Poetry for SCROTUS Girls’ with poems for Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama; Defying Trumplandia; Adios Trumplandia!; James Brown’sWig and Other Poems; and Vagenda of Manicide and Other Poems were published by Locofo Chaps in 2017. Her first collection of poetry, peminology, was published by Paloma Press in 2018. 

In Spring 2019 Melinda was the Muriel Gold Senior Visiting Professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada where she organized the Pinay Power II: Celebrating Peminisms in the Diaspora conference (see pinaypower.ca for more info). 

She is a mezzo-soprano, a mom, an Aquarian, and admits an obsession with Hello Kitty. More info: http://peminist.com