Good Luck Gold

—Claremont Stone Center Recognition of Merit Award (author achievement award)

I wrote hundreds of poems from the time I started studying with Myra Cohn Livingston until the time I decided the Good Luck Gold manuscript was ready, and so I had many poems to choose from to fill the book. Trying to decide which of the hundreds stood out above the rest, or had special meaning for me, was a difficult task. Finally I settled on 59 poems.

Choosing the title poem was equally difficult. After much thought, I chose Good Luck Gold because I felt so lucky to be a poet! Luck plays an important role in traditional Chinese culture and, as my poem says, when I was a baby one month old, my grandparents gave me good luck gold – to bring me luck my whole life long.