Joan E. Bauer: She Kept Her Own Company

for Anna May Wong (1905—1961)


Born on Flower Street. Second of eight children.
Family business, a laundry & when her family moved

to Figueroa, she skipped school to hang around
the movie sets, hoping for a bit part. Luminous eyes.

Dark hair flowing like a river. At 17, she won the lead
as ‘Lotus Flower’ in the first-ever Technicolor movie.

Then a delicious turn as the cunning ‘Mongol slave’
in Douglas Fairbanks’ masterpiece, The Thief of Bagdad.

Anna May, scantily clad & taller, upstaged him.
For years, variations on Madame Butterfly,

China Doll, Dragon Lady. In a meatier part,
she paired with Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express.

Anna May memorably kills a Chinese warlord,
her rapist, with a dagger. On film, couldn’t kiss

or bed a white man. Off-screen, another matter.
Though she placed the first rivet at Graumann’s,

her hand & footprints not enshrined there.
What stung most — losing O-lan in The Good Earth

to German-born Luise Rainer playing yellowface.
Hungry for juicier parts in Europe, she taught herself

French & German. She traveled China, then back home,
promoted Chinese cooking & culture. After the war,

smaller roles, vodka, renting out her apartments.
She died before she could feast on Flower Drum Song,

The script lying on her bed stand. Always signed
her headshots, Orientally yours—

~~~~

Joan E. Bauer is the author of three full-length poetry collections, Fig Season (Turning Point, 2023), The Camera Artist (Turning Point, 2021), and The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). Recent work has appeared in Paterson Literary Review, Slipstream and Chiron Review. She divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA where she co-curates the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins.

(Source of photo and bio: Gods and Foolish Grandeur)