Cupertino’s new poet laureate embraces bilingualism
Like many Cupertino residents, Jing Jing Yang came to the city from China. As Cupertino’s new poet laureate, Yang said she wants to inspire other immigrants to create in both their native and second languages.
“I’d like to think my inspiration comes from home and from an inherited craving for language arts,” Yang said at a Feb. 27 reception in her honor at the Quinlan Community Center. “It doesn’t matter what language it is. … I want to prove you can be an immigrant and also write in English.”
Yang is Cupertino’s sixth poet laureate. The city created the two-year volunteer position in 2010 to promote poetry and other forms of literature. Laureates also are expected to organize poetryrelated events and to act as a hub for creative activity in the city.
Yang credited her upbringing by her single mother for giving her “remarkable strength to overcome hardships as an immigrant to the United States.” And she credited Ann Muto, the city’s poet laureate in 2016-17, for giving her the confidence to write poetry in both Chinese and English.
Yang’s poem “Logograph” won first place in the 2017 Celebrate Creativity Poetry Contest, an annual event typically overseen by the poet laureate. Last year, instead of holding a contest, outgoing poet laureate Kaecey Mccormick compiled an anthology featuring works by dozens of Cupertino
poets. The Feb. 27 event marked the launch of “Celebrate Creativity: A Cupertino Community Anthology.”
“A contest pits creators against each other,” Mccormick said.
“My vision was to bring everyone’s voices together.”
Some of the poets whose work is in the anthology will read their poems at an April 23 event at the Cupertino Library, where the book will be introduced into the county library system. The reading starts at 7 p.m.
Contact Anne Gelhaus at 408200-1051.