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What they're saying...

"In this vivid, wonderfully empathetic book of poems, Lunch in Chinatown, Mary Bonina is an inquisitive seeker, not only set to teach English but also to learn about the lives of her immigrant students. There's the student who worked with the very ill and the job did not allow wearing jewelry "without that ring on her finger/her hand felt too light, made her think/that she wasn't in the world anymore," another puzzled over the same abbreviation for Saint and Street, a young man recalled his young love in Port au Prince. In her masterful telling Bonina has given us glimpses of their worlds, both before and after the immigration. These poems celebrate the common human language, of disappointments and loss, aspirations and love, and also how poetry and the resolve of students and their teacher can make all the difference in the world."

​— Pui Ying Wong, author of Fanling in October
“Bonina’s chapbook is a gem, a lesson in thoughtfulness, revealing the subtle encounters of an immigrant who is presented as a person instead of a case study…Lunch in Chinatown is a poignant exploration of valued human connections, understanding, and shared humanity in the face of cultural and linguistic differences. Bonina becomes the astute poet who is at once a keen custodian as well as a non-intrusive linguistic ethnographer, opening her professional and yet intimate world through the precise power of poetry.”

— Patrick Sylvain, P.H.D., M.F.A.
Haitian poet, Professor of Global/Transnational/Postcolonial Literature, Author of the recent Unfinished Dreams/Rev San Bout, bilingual Poetry, Lead Author: Education Across Borders, Essays (Beacon Press, 2022)
“It’s a wonderful book and an important one given our often harsh climate toward newcomers.”  
 
​— Ellen Steinbaum, author of Leavings, poetry (forthcoming from Every Other Thursday Press )
“The book is elegant, the cover photograph, the red background, the typeface…I think it will find a wide interest. The powers that be should know about it.”

— Helena Minton, author of Paris Paint Box, Poetry (Loom Press)
“So many of these poems remain in my mind. Two of my favorites, among many others I could name, are “Fashion Sense” and “Drift,” the latter of which I learned is carved into a granite monolith. What an honor…It’s truly a memorable and moving collection.”

— Mary E. Mitchell, author of Starting Out Sideways, A Novel and Love in Complete Sentences, A Novel (St. Martins Press)

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To Purchase

For signed copies, contact the author or attend an upcoming reading (listed below).

​Available also at The Lost Bookshelf, Cervena Barva Press.

Upcoming Scheduled Readings

Date: September 22, 2024
Time: 2-3pm
Location: The Old Manse (the Emerson House), Concord, MA
with Patty Crane, (translator The Blue House: Collected Works of Thomas Transtromer, Copper Canyon Press)

Date: September 26, 2024
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Clark University/Worcester County Poetry Association, Razzo Hall at the Traina Arts Center, 92 Downing Street (complex at the former Downing Street School)
Stockmal Reading honoring the legacy of Stanley Kunitz (U.S. Poet Laureate 1974, 2000)

Date: October 10, 2024
Time: 7:30pm
Location: Loring Greenough House, 12 South Street, Jamaica Plain Center
Chapter and Verse 2 with Richard Wollman

Date: October 16, 2024
Time: 4:30pm 
Location: Gibson’s Bookstore & Café, 45 South Main Street, Concord, NH
Poetry Society of New Hampshire with Mark Pawlak (Away/Away, Arrowsmith Press)

Date: October 24, 2024
Time: 7pm
Location: Tidepool Bookshop, 373 Chandler St., Worcester MA
with Mark Pawlak (Away/Away, Arrowsmith Press)

Date: December 4, 2024
Location: Grolier Poetry Bookshop, 6 Plympton St., Cambridge MA
with Charles Coe (New and Selected Poems, Leapfrog Press), Helena Minton (Paris Paint Box, Loom Press) and Ellen Steinbaum (Leavings, Every Other Thursday Press)