Description
Book Synopsis"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.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS Introduction YOUR ANCIENT SEE THROUGH onion head I have [Buddha’s ears are droopy touch his shoulders] Baked Alaska [Find & fund It’s a prison oven] [bad beats it says now “come on in] [I’m almost your cat’s pajamas] Lozenge View Box of Butter [Mulberry mess squish squash] [The yelling father makes metered babies] A Story of History I Woke Up this Morning and it was Friday [Unorthodox & impractical one not led] the trillionth day of DNA Smell the Purple Incense that May or May Not Smell Better than the Rat You Name “Composition” Ritual for Attracting Money Poppies [Sitting there nearly translucent You’ll end up] [Baby I’ve drawn your face] [A night at the beach what is left] [Flying colors land divide a place You] Rosy Fob Horse Song [Ride a bike to Houston] [What can be my disobey] [I like the light blue] pink bridge [Untouched bubble gum me] Mnemosyne [Pink bridge hearts that look like] Shred [Pause rate the fall] [hard tofu what to eat today] [house on fire my mom’s] [Underwater Flower] Offing [Crass and burn your terrible] [Cold black little puddle stops] [Jealous all the pissy things] Mission Dolores “last pieces” Time Out From the Hazard Garden & Instantaneous Baloney 18-year-old Kurt Cobain Arrested For Painting “Homosexual Sex Rules” on the Side of an Aberdeen Bank: Police Report of Pocket Contents [Cats underwater a zoo] From a NY Times Review of Klemperer’s 1942 – 1945 Diary Dream 5.22.97 Speckled [Mean suddenly Bitch woman] Captive and Able To Pass Speaking When Spoken to [Monster made you were] [Let’s see if she’ll run away] [Years after stealing cattle from the womb] rose patch [You have your ancient see through] Dark Some Dumb Love Hesitating Winter [Staying at work for lunch] [Exhaustion break through challenges] [Pastel lapel Pretend Erase] Calm In The Vegetable Beard Of Time [Interlocking profiles] [Look on the damned lake] [Tortured fire and foot held] Grey The Tea Is You You Are The Tea [Roll in your skull gone green] let’s eat red for fun [Love calls for Hades cold cream] Cupid of Rocks and Flame Index Finger [Love is a purple angel] Funk Enters English by 1625 [Crows and grackles grackles] [Pretty headdress on Kidumiel] [Because x marks the spot] Wish [Fall in love in Luna] [Grow baby grow a brain with curly] [Let me be a meaningful soul] Dear Death [Shy mouth not the value of it (lips)] RED JUICE Up Nursing The Earth is in Me “By Goods We Destroy Good” Journey With Investigative Bees The Unknown Woman Yesterday Wore a Hemp Hat Women With Sharp Noses You Say the Land A Lily Mother I Found Him Beneath a Tree Spring Sonnet Eurasiacan Ronald McDonald The News Pictures the Beheaded The Secrecy of Arms at Dawn “Unhemmed Latitude” If I Can’t Have Another Baby Blackberries The Goddess Gave Me Roses Lacy Light notes HECATE LOCHIA Some Things Add Some Blue Thinking of Bernadette Blue Norther Putt Putt the Car Birthday Poem Post Hurricane Ike Almost Equinox We Are Free to Eat God Iris Again Dust I’m in Very The Size Water That Falls From the Sky Purple Vomit Long Light I Disgorge the Vegetation Tremendous Prop Another Stabbing Boldface Orangey Drippy A Crime Pendulant No Sleep Write Fucked Up Poems I’m Sorry for You Sad Marigolds 9 Flat Flies in the House Butterflies, Breastmilk, Chinese Jade, Continuous Present, & Motorcycles Strangely Touched I Stole That Big Heart Small Heart I Like Being Lucky Ode Needing Great Mother of the Gods I Can Extract Myself/ From That Emotion The Sun Person Horse Herb Seagulls Ugly Poem I’m Driving Seeds Stuck in Ground Strut I Said Apprehend To Seize Pusa The Ballerina in a Music Box Washington February 2, 2007 You Can Ride Short No One Wants Mountain Gorillas I Could Scream This Collapse Living Cupid Rides The Starbucks Mermaid Medina Apples Get Debt Relief Upsidedown Again Tuesday Climb Building The Problem Fraying What Was in Her Ash-Wood Box China Plans Monsters in the Myth Dying Light Cat at the Door Heather’s Real Face Cherries Monday Hecate Doesn’t Grackles Grack They Sell You What Disappears Cancel That Calm-Lived Chemical Color I Need More Cowbell To Explode A Debt We Might Be Folding Towels Great Funds Lenses Leap Day Notes Bendy Grey Slice Poem Sleepy Of Mercury
