Nellie Wong and Kazim Ali. Photo courtesy of Kazim Ali.
“My own path to writing leads to yours, ours. The paths of Asian American literature entwined, sensual, tough, humorous, maddening, enriching. Voices old and new. Voices out and about. Present, wherever’s home.”
— Nellie Wong, Keynote Address at the 2024 Asian American Literature Festival for Kearny Street Workshop
We’re deeply saddened to hear about the passing of Nellie Wong, and we send our care and condolences to her family and loved ones. Nellie Wong was a beloved poet and activist whose impact on Asian American art and literature is immeasurable. Nellie Wong’s body of work, spanning decades, inspired generations of writers.
As poet, scholar, and Kundiman Fellow Timothy Yu remarks in his introduction to her most recent collection Nothing Like Freedom, Nellie Wong’s work “emphasizes art’s embeddedness in everyday life” and “one of Wong’s greatest gifts to us has been her unapologetic embrace of poetry as a political act.”
We are so grateful to Nellie Wong for her words, wisdom, and shining example. As we remember an icon of Asian American literature, we would like to share a tribute by poet and Kundiman Advisory Board member Kazim Ali:
“Nellie Wong was a legend in both activism and literature. Based in the Bay Area, she made her work on behalf of working people the primary cause of her life. She was part of the earliest generation of Asian American poets making their mark in the landscape of literature, publishing books with Kelsey Street Press, and then later with other small and independent presses. From her early appearance in the path-breaking anthology of feminist writers, No More Masks, all the way to her most recent collection, Nothing Like Freedom, published just last year, Nellie Wong portrayed in poetry the lives of working people and Asian American people in a way few other writers of her generation, or any other after, have.
Of Nellie Wong, Merle Woo wrote, ‘For most of her life, Wong has shown what it's like to be on the front lines every day, whether at work as a secretary whose thirst for knowledge threatened her bosses, or on the streets--marching with thousands, demanding justice--fighting for women's rights, studying poetry, immersing herself in family, comrades, community, writing our stories, saving our lives.’
And Nellie was my friend. I reached out to her––as many others must have––as a younger poet, interested in meeting one of the titans of my field, and she responded with the perfect generosity of a person whose central ethic was of community building. Over many years, we stayed in touch, saw each other whenever I was in the Bay Area, but most importantly, we held each other close in community. One of my greatest unrealized plans was to hold a tribute reading and panel discussion on Nellie's work at the Asian American Literary Festival that was planned to have taken place in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2023. Though Nellie was advanced in age, she had the physical energy of a person forty years younger, and was making plans to travel to D.C. for the event. Unfortunately, the Smithsonian canceled the event, and we were not able to offer Nellie her flowers.
Let us do so now and forever moving forward. Let us honor one of the great pillars of both Asian American Literature and American poetry, and let us honor her as the fierce and relentless warrior for peace and justice and proponent of radical politics that she was. Nellie Wong, you will be remembered.”