Creative Publications

MEMOIR

“The Language of Conversion” forthcoming in Commonweal Magazine

“Why I Came and Why I Stay” in Commonweal Magazine (Oct. 2019)

“We Carry Smoke and Paper” in Blood Orange Review Vol. 11.1 (May 2019)

“The Sense of the Story” in The Common Reader (April 2019)

“Luck Let Go” in Barnstorm Literary Journal (2015)

“Jack’s Kitchen” in Copper Nickel (2010)

“Back Home” in North Dakota Quarterly (2007)

 

ARTICLES 

Profile at the Bridges Foundation (Jan. 2020)

“Tales of Assimilation” in Commonweal Magazine (Dec. 2019)

“Return community college to an institution that builds our city’s future” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Feb. 2018)

“College’s trustees add a stinging insult to layoffs” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Dec. 2017)

“Silence, Reader” in Blackbird (2010)

 

POEMS in PERIODICALS (selected)

“Learn to Walk” in The Rappahannock Review (Dec. 2019)

“And So More” in Lantern Review (2019)

“The Convert Wants Wounds, Not Scars” in Academy of American Poets (2019)

“The Convert’s Heart is Good to Eat” in Ruminate (2018)

“Liturgy” in Slippery Elm (2017)

“The Convert Learns to Play Hide and Seek”; “The Convert Desires Her Way Into a First Prayer.” Figure One (2017)

“Or Am I”; “Yolk” in Construction Magazine (2014)

“Why We Are This Way” in Boxcar Poetry Review (2013)

3 poems in failbetter.com (2012)

2 poems in Connotation Press (2011)

“The Sea Wall” in The Collagist (2011)

“Migration” reprinted in East West Poetry (2011)

3 poems in Town Creek Poetry (2010)

2 poems in Blackbird (2010)

“History Filled In” reprinted in 3 Quarks Daily (2010)

“Giving” in Cha: An Asian Literary Magazine (2009)

“The Voice Before” in The Greensboro Review (2008)

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POEMS in ANTHOLOGIES

 

 

The Dead in Daylight

Poetry collection available from COOPER DILLON BOOKS.

“A fiercely feminine blood runs through these poems. Of wire, of salt, of harvest, of motherhood, of daughterhood, and all that these elements lay claim to. The Dead in Daylight reveals an astonishing voice that is equal parts ferocious and tender. Melody S. Gee’s collection builds a generous fire where origin is praised and where history shines beyond the flame.” -Tina Chang

“Melody S. Gee’s poems reveal the tethers and the hooks of the past. Beautifully strange and intimate, her language maps the push and pull of motherhood and familial history. A deftly chiseled voice speaks and sings in this book; it’s a voice that’s original and immediate. Striking images attend to both the uncanny and the sublime. In one poem, we’re given ‘a forest of doors.’ In another, the ‘throat shiver of music.’ The Dead in Daylight is one of the best books I’ve read this year.” -Eduardo C. Corral

 

Each Crumbling House

WINNER OF THE 2010 PERUGIA PRESS BOOK PRIZE.

Poetry collection available from PERUGIA PRESS.

Each Crumbling House Cover

Review in The Daily Genoshan

Review in North Dakota Quarterly

Review in Sycamore Review

Interview with Sycamore Review

Review in storySouth 

Review in Newpages.com

Review in Book Harvest Book Reviews

Review in Asian Cha

“Melody Gee’s Each Crumbling House is a tale of return not marked by triumph, but of a palpable absence. The poems’ speakers “count arrows of exiled/geese” to know not only about what it is to feel cold, but what it is to leave home. There is comfort here, too: in the spaces of longing, an understanding is reached upon the return to homeland. While the speakers are reaching for ways to name the pain of lost histories and lost relatives, “always/a word away from the word,” Melody Gee’s poems are full of the right words, folding and unfolding the way that wings do from the mass clusters of Monarch butterflies wintering in the pines, huddling together for warmth.” -Oliver de la Paz

“Melody Gee proves to us through her poetry that first-generation Asian American experiences still matter and will always matter. But even more so, her quietly unsettling and powerful book speaks to the whole human experience through its exploration of inheritance.  These are haunting poems about culture, nature, and ultimately about love.” -Victoria Chang

Pilsen Community Books, Chicago, IL, November 6, 2019.

Kundiman Reading. The Dial Bookshop. Chicago, IL. November 7, 2018.

Kundiman Panel. Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Iowa City, IA. March 6, 2018.

Mission Creek Festival Reading. Prairie Lights Bookstore. Iowa City, IA. March 7, 2018.

National Poetry Month Reading & Workshop Series, St. Louis Community College-Forest Park, St. Louis, MO, April 4, 2017.

National Poetry Month Reading, St. Louis Community College-Wildwood, Wildwood, MO, April 20, 2016.

Orr Street Studios Seeing Hearing Voices/Seeing Visions, Columbia, MO. April 15, 2014

St. Louis Poetry Center Observable Reading, St. Louis, MO. February 10, 2014.

Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts. St. Louis, MO. February 14, 2013.

Fort Gondo Poetry Series, St. Louis, MO. October 12, 2012.

Southern Colorado Reading Series. Colorado State University-Pueblo. October 18, 2011.

Sheila Nolan Whalen Poetry Series. St. Louis, MO. October 4, 2011.

River Styx @ Duff’s Poetry Series.  St. Louis, MO. March 21, 2011.

The Jones Library.  Amherst, MA.  November 7, 2010.

The Collected Poets Series.  Shelburne Falls, MA.  November 4, 2010.

East St. Louis Writers’ Workshop.  East St. Louis, IL.  September 16, 2010.

Southwestern Illinois College Poetry Reading.  Belleville, IL.  April 21, 2010.

Kundiman Fiction Fellowship, 2019.

Finalist, Jacar Press Julie Suk Book Award, The Dead in Daylight, 2017.

Writers@Work Nonfiction Fellowship Prize Finalist, “Luck Let Go.” 2015.

Pushcart Prize Nomination, Each Crumbling House, 2010.

Perugia Press Book Prize Winner, Each Crumbling House, 2010.

Best New Poets Nomination, 2010.

Boston Review/Discovery Prize Semi-finalist, 2010.

Many Mountains Moving First Book Prize Finalist, The Voice Before, 2009.

Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize Semi-Finalist, The Voice Before, 2009.

National Poetry Series Finalist, The Voice Before, 2009.

Liam Rector First Book Prize Finalist, The Voice Before. 2009.

Annie Dillard Award for Creative Nonfiction Finalist, “Jack’s Kitchen.” 2009.

Pushcart Prize Nomination, “The Voice Before,” 2009. 

Kundiman Poetry Fellowship, 2008.

Winner, Robert Watson Literary Prize, “The Voice Before.” 2008.