Ching-In Chen pens a spell for migrant laborers

Each day during the month of April, KUOW is highlighting the work of Seattle-based poets for National Poetry Month. In this series curated by Seattle Civic Poet and 10,000 Things host Shin Yu Pai, you'll find a selection of poems for the mind, heart, senses, and soul.

In "Another Spell for the Living", Ching-In Chen writes with tenderness and care about the community of migrant massage parlor workers, sex workers, and care workers in the Chinatown-International District and greater Seattle area to humanize these women.

Ching-In Chen is a genderqueer Chinese American writer, community organizer and teacher. They are author of "The Heart's Traffic: a novel in poems" and "recombinant." Chen is co-editor of "The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities." A community organizer, they have worked in Asian American communities in San Francisco, Oakland, Riverside, Boston, Milwaukee, Houston and Seattle and are currently a core member of the Massage Parlor Outreach Project. They teach at University of Washington Bothell.