There is never just another day in our lives. The moon will glow strawberry bright on June 4th, on an Earth where only a few humans have tasted strawberries. Skeletal thousands die today and every day. 112 years ago, American women were granted by white men the right to vote, but these were white women and they did not grant the right to vote for other raced Americans till decades later. 78 years later, across the ocean, the day was so special it was erased by the Calendarist afraid of such just another day. Every day such non-trivia ripples through my frontal cortex. June 4th today is a different day with different facts to quiz my sleep. Just another day when Ukraine may be blown up, and nuclear radiation will be our extreme challenge. On June 4th I am depressed and will find a new reason to be happy. The loquat tree, an import from China, plumped by California’s atmospheric river rains, fills my neighbours’ baskets this June 4th. It is never just another day.
How to cite: Lim, Shirley-Geok Lin. “Just Another Day: Shirley Geok-lin Lim.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 4 Jun. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/06/04/shirley-another-day.
Shirley Geok-lin Lim (PhD, Brandeis) has published eleven poetry collections, most recently In Praise of Limes in 2022. Her work has been widely anthologised; published in numerous journals (The Hudson Review, Feminist Studies, Virginia Quarterly Review, etc.); featured by Bill Moyers, Tracey K. Smith’s Slowdown, and set to music as libretto for various scores. She received the British Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Crossing the Peninsula, her first collection; and the American Book Awards for The Forbidden Stitch and her memoir, Among the White Moon Faces. She’s authored three novels, The Shirley Lim Collection, three story collections, two critical studies, and is editor/co-editor of over eighteen anthologies and special issues of journals. Recipient of the MELUS and Feminist Press Lifetime Achievement Awards, and the University of California Santa Barbara’s Research Lecturer Award, she has held Visiting Professorships at MIT, NUS, NIE, National Sun-yet Sen University, City University of Hong Kong, etc. and served as Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong and Chair of Women’s Studies at UCSB where she is now Professor Emerita.
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