i may be crucified for this... but can someone tell me how many poems with tea leaves and cardamom and grandma's cooking permeating the air is needed to make us who we are?! i catch myself inserting this stuff into my writings sometimes so they become more "ethnic" more "cultured" more "nostalgic"... cause my writings are certainly ordinary [ordinary meaning void of any kind of reference to my heritage or the enormous pain and prejudice that I encountered in america] and not good enough for the english language, and without these words they don't seem to be good enough for my own race either! why am i feeling guilty and intimidated reading non-ethnic poetry to americans AND iranians?! and no, i don't want to capitalize those words!