Malaysian Literature

Ah-MahShirley Geok-Lin Lim

Shirley Geok-Lin LimBorn in Malacca, Malaysia in 1944

Educated at a Catholic convent school under the British colonial education

She won a federal scholarship at the University of Malaya, then at the age of 24, went to graduate school and afterwards received her Ph.D. in English and American Literature

Her first poetry collection, Crossing the Peninsula and other Poems, won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1980 making her the first woman and the first Asian to receive the award.

Shirley Geok-Lin LimShe is currently a professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Shirley also taught in Singapore and in Hong Kong as well.

Areas of interest: Asian-American cultural productions, post-colonial literature, ethnic and feminist writing and creative writing

Overview of the Poem

"Ah Mah" is a poem about the author’s grandmother. The author, Lim, describes her grandmother in detail and explains how her grandfather "bought" her grandmother. Lim describes her grandmother as a very small and thin woman (10-11). She gives the impression that her grandmother had a hard life even though it appears that the family had enough money.

This poem contains many references to Chinese culture that are very interesting and inspire curiosity. By researching the culture of China, one can better understand the references to it in "Ah Mah." Then, the poem has more meaning to the reader than if he did not posses any knowledge about Chinese culture.

Literary Devices

Grandmother was smaller than

Me at eight. Had she

Been child forever?

Helpless, hopeless, chin sharp

As a knuckle, fan face

Hardly half-opened, not a scrap

Of fat anywhere; she tottered

In black silk, leaning on

Handmaids on two tortured

Fins. At sixty, his sons all

Married, grandfather bought her

Soochow flower song girl.

Every bone in her feet

Had been broken, bound tighter

Than any neighbor’s sweet

Daughters. Ten toes and instep

Curled inwards, yellow petals

Of chrysanthemum, wrapped

In gold cloth. He bought the young

Face, small knobby breasts

He swore he’d not dress in sarong

Of maternity. Each night

Literary Devices

He held her feet in his palms

Like lotus in the tight

Hollow of celestial lakes.

In his calloused flesh, her

Weightless soles, cool and slack

Clenched in his stranger’s lever

Symbolism

Silk & Soochow flower song girl - wealth

Tortured fins - bound feet

Yellow petals of chrysanthemum - bound feet

PERSONAL INSIGHTS

Reported by: Mary Grace AscutiaJustine Leonard Salvador