Christine Shan Shan Hou
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The Joy and Terror are Both in the Swallowing
“These leaping, elliptical poems are darkly funny and full of pluck and verve. The speakers of these poems keeps one eye on the terrarium of contemporary life while keeping the other eye on watch for blink-and-you'll-miss-it death. Here is a hero expressive of desires absurd yet essential: ‘I want my death to be comfortable and homey, but also victorious and sexy like a pack of half-naked men riding wild animals.’ Throughout, Hou's bold lyric gives way to sections of ‘The Lost Haikus,’ haikus which dot the white pages like small ponds in which we bear witness to transcendent auguries. ‘Clarity,’ Hou writes, ‘is a moment of madness unravelling in real time in a public space,’ much like these poems tracing the ‘obedient’ geography of a life caught between the urban and the unknown—I joyfully rode along, as if on my own feral creature.”
—Diana Khoi Nguyen, author of Ghost Of
At the Tender Table Yes is an Unclassifiable Pleasure
I've been thinking a lot about the rich stories we tell through food, and the way we create communities around how we nourish ourselves and each other, what a privilege that is, and what stirs us to seek these out.
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