Hoa Nguyen's poems probe dailiness to divorce us from our base
assumptions about how language might present the world to us. Her poems
comprise some of the most inviting lyrics I've found in a living
poet.--Bookslut
Phrase by phrase Nguyen's work can be conversational, playful, funny,
angry, acutely self-aware, and loaded with sensory information.--Anselm
Berrigan, from the introduction
Red Juice represents a decade of poems written roughly between 1998
and 2008, previously only available in small-run handmade chapbooks,
journals, and out-of-print books. This collection of early poems by
Vietnamese American poet Hoa Nguyen showcases her feminist ecopoetics
and unique style, all lyrical in the post-modern tradition.
[BUDDHA'S EARS ARE DROOPY TOUCH HIS SHOULDERS]
Buddha's ears are droopy touch his shoulders
as scarves fly out of windows and I shriek
at the lotus of enlightenment
Travel to Free Street past Waco
to the hole in the Earth
wearing water
I'm aiming my mouth
for apple pie
Born in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, DC, area, Hoa
Nguyen studied Poetics at New College of California in San Francisco.
With the poet Dale Smith, Nguyen founded Skanky Possum, a poetry journal
and book imprint. She is the author of eight poetry books and chapbooks
and lives in Toronto, Ontario, where she teaches poetics at Ryerson
University and curates a reading series.
