Afterland: Poems Contributor(s): Vang, Mai Der (Author) |
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ISBN: 1555977707 ISBN-13: 9781555977702 Publisher: Graywolf Press
WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD! Click here for our low price guarantee Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions Published: April 2017 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - General |
Dewey: 811.6 |
LCCN: 2016938843 |
Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.9" W x 8.9" L (0.35 lbs) 96 pages |
Features: Price on Product |
Review Citations: Library Journal 01/01/2017 pg. 104 Publishers Weekly 02/20/2017 Booklist 03/15/2017 pg. 14 Shelf Awareness 04/25/2017 |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry The 2016 winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, selected by Carolyn ForchWhen I make the crossing, you must not be taken no matter what the current gives. When we reach the camp, there will be thousands like us. If I make it onto the plane, you must follow me to the roads and waiting pastures of America. We will not ride the water today on the shoulders of buffalo as we used to many years ago, nor will we forage for the sweetest mangoes. I am refugee. You are too. Cry, but do not weep. --from "Transmigration" Afterland is a powerful, essential collection of poetry that recounts with devastating detail the Hmong exodus from Laos and the fate of thousands of refugees seeking asylum. Mai Der Vang is telling the story of her own family, and by doing so, she also provides an essential history of the Hmong culture's ongoing resilience in exile. Many of these poems are written in the voices of those fleeing unbearable violence after U.S. forces recruited Hmong fighters in Laos in the Secret War against communism, only to abandon them after that war went awry. That history is little known or understood, but the three hundred thousand Hmong now living in the United States are living proof of its aftermath. With poems of extraordinary force and grace, Afterland holds an original place in American poetry and lands with a sense of humanity saved, of outrage, of a deep tradition broken by war and ocean but still intact, remembered, and lived. |
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