The Oldtimers

Visit this link to read one of the poems and hear a little about the inspiration for the book.

Wing Tek Lum’s third collection of poetry, The Oldtimers, imagines life in Honolulu Chinatown circa 1900. Lum gives voice to the forgotten pioneer generation of sojourners and settlers, detailing the trials and temptations of this bachelor society living far from their homeland—their hard work, their diversions, their challenges, and, even amidst the notorious plague and fire, their perseverance.

Wing Tek Lum’s poetry, renowned for its vivid imagery, emotional depth, and historical consciousness, revives archival voices with insight and empathy. Verses in The Oldtimers reflect on themes of displacement, labor, isolation, familial bonds and obligations, cultural heritage and adaptation, and the preservation of traditions and values amidst the islands’ rapid growth.

International orders through Itasca Books.

Author	Wing Tek Lum
ISBN-13	978-1-943756-11-7
Year Published	2024
Format	Softcover
Language	English
Number of Pages	224
Weight	13.2 oz
Dimensions	9 × 6 × 0.95 in

“Wing Tek Lum’s The Oldtimers is an origin story about arrival, displacement, and finally a sense of belonging during a time of exclusion. The words here are not about laws and documents but about heartfelt family stories sourced from the basic elements of earth, air, fire, and water of the islands.” — Shawn Wong, author of Homebase and American Knees “This impressive collection lets us see through the eyes of those who went overseas and those loved ones they left behind in China and makes us feel their sadness, loneliness, terror, and frustration as if it were our own. Wing Tek’s precise, insightful poems transform the shacks, fields, and streets of Hawai‘i into a grand stage for the moving drama of Chinese America itself.” — Laurence Yep, author of Dragonwings “What is astonishing about The Oldtimers is how, by recreating the daily lives and desires of the denizens of old Chinese Honolulu, Wing Tek Lum does something that few poets do: he tells stories. Continuing his poetics of archival resurrection, this book expresses a generous curiosity about his dramatis personae: the domestic servant, the plantation worker, and the prisoner; the street peddler, the cook, and the sex-worker; the bandits and the bachelors as well as the many victims of anti-Chinese violence. What results is a series of vivid dramatic monologues with the richness, intimacy, and humanity of a social novel.” — Ken Chen, author of Juvenilia “Full of wisdom and insights earned from a life of paying attention, these wonderful poems draw on memory and proceed by an earnest storytelling in an unassuming and understated tone in order to restore an individual voice to its rightful context of culture and, beyond that, cosmic inheritance.” — Li-Young Lee, author of The Invention of the Darling and co-translator of Dao De Jing