Wing Tek Lum • Poetry Reading at da Shop

Bamboo Ridge Press is pleased to debut Wing Tek Lum’s third collection of poetry, The Oldtimers. Imagining life in Honolulu Chinatown circa 1900, Lum gives voice to the forgotten pioneer generation of sojourners and settlers, detailing the trials and temptations of this bachelor society living far from their homeland—their hard work, their diversions, their challenges, and perserverance.

Wing Tek Lum’s poetry, renowned for its vivid imagery, emotional depth, and historical consciousness, revives archival voices with insight and empathy. Verses in The Oldtimers reflect on themes of displacement, labor, isolation, familial bonds and obligations, cultural heritage and adaptation, and the preservation of traditions and values amidst the islands’ rapid growth.

Excerpt from “At Dusk”

The cook inside fires up his wok, deeply patinaed,

stir frying slices of pork belly and vegetables

then adding a dollop of his secret shrimp paste,

this tiny seed quickly blossoming into a bouquet

permeating the courtyard as the light recedes.

The oldtimer hanging his threadbare wash

revels in the savory aroma of this serendipity.

In the gloaming he breaks out into song,

his taut line of bleach-white clothes pegs paddling

in unison into the gathering wind.

More about the author:

Wing Tek Lum is a Honolulu businessman and poet. Bamboo Ridge Press has published two earlier collections of his poetry: Expounding the Doubtful Points (1987) and The Nanjing Massacre: Poems (2012). With Makoto Ōoka, Joseph Stanton, and Jean Yamasaki Toyama, he participated in a collaborative work of linked verse, which was published as What the Kite Thinks by Summer Session, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 1994.

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