the cruelest month review series #5




not only does hoa nguyen have one of the coolest, and i might add prettiest, names in contemporary poetry, she is simply one of my favorite poets writing today. perhaps it's her own domestic bohemia written in a disjunctive, minimalist style that i not only identify with both as a parent and a poet but also how her life, from the distance of my vantage, has become the life of poetry.

what i like about this vid of her reading is how she brought her son onstage. the boy, keaton, stands by his mother's side but also gets into stuff as many young kids do. i suppose i respond to this vid because i am also a poet and a father of a young son. yet, it's nguyen's poetry that is the crux of why i've viewed it several times.

what i also find interesting is how literacy is changing in the digital age. not only am i reading books, but i'm reading more and more self-produced chaps and most critically, blogs, e-zines, and e-books and watching readings on the internet such as this one. videos such as this are not ancillary to poetics but now a part of poetry too. i return to videos of poetry readings not just to hear the poems, tho that is indeed a large part of why i watch, but also like a rock concert i want to hear those poems performed live.

nguyen is fit for the task. in my book, she rocks.