Bryan Thao Worra

One of the reasons readers seek out poetry is that the genre offers a way of looking at the world that can be more expansive than, say, the essay or the short story. Lines break like worlds just out of view, and language calls us back to linger on what was just said or not said. This is the power of the work in Bryan Thao Worra's Demonstra, a collection of poems that reference, among others, figures of Lao myth, Grendel's mother, kaiju, and Lovecraft, and which ask us to consider whether show more these references resist closure just as poems do. Poems of note include "The Dream Highway of Ms. Mannivongsa," "The Last War Poem," and "What Is The Southeast Asian American Poem of Tomorrow?" which concludes the collection. This is a book I returned to a number of times, and I highly recommend it. show less