Chui reflects on home, family and her mother's meatballs

She spoke about meatballs with passion. In a pulsating voice, 22-year-old Chia-Ti Chui — a Taiwanese-American performance poet — emphasized syllables and silences in "A Song of Myself: Celebrating Taiwanese American Heritage."

The presentation was hosted by the Taiwanese Student Association and held at the Frist Campus Center Cafe on Wednesday night.

Chui's poems focus on her experiences at home, abroad, in love, through loss, while voyaging and in introspection — all while conveying the influence of her Taiwanese-American heritage.

Her poems spoke of the reconciliation of her intrinsic Asian culture with her "all-American" New York home. And in speaking of home, she was almost at a loss as how to define that simple word.

"My poems are about my home, and where it is — which can have a very broad definition," Chui said.

Home for Chui includes much of her family life, and in particular, her relationship with her mother. In one of her poems she described the ritual of watching her mother make Chinese Lion's Head meatballs in expressive detail.

She conveyed the intricacies of the elaborate and delicate procedure — the amounts of spice and soy-sauce, the shape, color and texture of the meatballs at every stage of their formation and the careful timing of the cooking itself. In short, she set the recipe of Lion's Head Meatballs to music, adding lyricism and dynamics through the rhythm and intonation of her voice.

But the step-wise description of ingredients and the process of mixing them was only the shell of the Lion's Head poem. Rather, the spirit and central meat of her piece could be found in the emotions and underlying subtle implications that permeated the poem.

For Chui, watching her mother make meatballs was like looking through a window into her mother's soul. As Chui said her gaze fell to her mother's hands, she startlingly realized the countless meals of nourishment that they had supplied. In feeling her mother's presence, Chui understood her mother's silent plea for her to stay longer and for her to call home more often.

Regret, longing, understanding and empathy reflected themselves through the piece. And in describing such a simple scene, Chui managed to convey the web of Asian and American influences that had supported her life.

Chui incorporated words, short phrases and sometimes even entire stanzas in Taiwanese into her poems. She mentioned after the readings that people have often asked her to translate these excerpts from her mother tongue. But her response was always, "It's more having them hear what I say rather than what the words really mean."

Chui grew up with a passion for language and the arts. She said her parents though do not always understand her drive.

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"My family doesn't really understand the art, why I do it, or how much time I spend on it," she said. "I'm trying to come to terms with that."

Nevertheless, her education has always been seeped in the liberal arts. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she took classes ranging from cultural literature, to psychology to book making.

She credits the small liberal arts school for promoting, supporting and directing her energies. She recalled her freshman year: "I wanted to put on a show. It turned into a performance — my first performance — 'Zoar.' "

From then on she was giving frequent performances at Columbia University-Barnard College and New York University, often incorporating music and dance into her poetic recitals.

Her next production is entitled "Return" and features three movements: a return to self and womanhood, a return to family and past relationships and a return to community and society. "It's great" Chui said. "I'm combining modern dance, poetry and music."