Expounding the Doubtful Points

Your eyes could be red-shot from crying. Your hands could be itching to write poetry. One thing's for sure after you have read Expounding the Doubtful Points -- your mind will be amazed at the possibilities when Wing Tek Lum crafts a poem. Lum writes about "Local Sensibilities" -- that the sight of a pineapple brings to mind the summer jobs "driving a forklift or packing wedges on the line" instead of "exotic fruit...to be served with ham" (67). Lum writes a "Minority Poem" too: "Why we're just as American as apple pie--that is, if you count the leftover peelings..." (69) But he also writes astoundingly touching poems about family. A son watches the "silent skin enshrouded no being, no agony, no joy" (20) as he gathers his mother's belongings at a hospital. A funeral brings up memories of "the old Gang...when they were so alive and in their primes" (33) and a realization sets in that half of the older generation is "incapacitated or dead" (34). Birth is immortalized in verses and stanzas as well. A couple sees their baby girl on the ultrasound monitor in "The Greatest Show on Earth." The father contemplates such questions as "What if a lullaby is sung out of tune? Is it not better than no song at all?" (39) but realizes "What ever happens to her now we will never be alone again" (40). After reading Wing Tek Lum, you will never be the same again, too.