Mai Der Vang

My library has an entire row of shelves dedicated to Hmong authors, and every once in a while I like to find something new from it. Anthologies are always perfect for this: they have a great number of wonderful authors and poets, many of whom are debuts. And this anthology is probably one of the better—or even one of the best—collections I've read. Ever.

How Do I Begin? showcases the work of twenty Hmong poets and authors—and one Mexican-American poet who is very close to his own local show more Hmong community. I'll be honest, the idea of having a non-Hmong poet in a Hmong anthology threw me for a loop at first, but his introduction won me over ("[…] I hope to connect to tangents of the universal human experience and tie us to one another, across oceans, orders, upbringings, and cultures. In this way, I find myself, a Mexican American writer from Southeast Fresno, contributing to a Hmong American anthology, as I attempt to echo the tragedies, routines, and reality of the life I share").

The (majority of the?) work of this collection is from members of the Hmong American Writers' Circle (HAWC), which strives to establish a Hmong literary culture.

I was extremely impressed by nearly every one of the authors and poets (and artists and photographers!) that contributed. Most of the time, anthologies are a mixed bag, and even the good ones round out to an even split of stories that were fantastic, okay, and not for me. But it was only a very few here that I didn't care for; most were phenomenal. Standouts were

- "Here I Am" by Soul Choj Vang (poem)
- "Polaroids of Tom" by Burlee Vang (short story)
- "the unattended" by Anthony Cody (poem)
- "Brothers" by Mary Yang (photograph)
- "The Spirit Catches You, and You Get Body Slammed" by Bryan Thao Worra (poem)
- "Dear Father" by Khaty Xiong (poem)
- "Sacrificial Replica" by Mai Der Vang (poem) show less

Mai der Vang's "Afterland" manages to make surrealistic and visionary poetry accessible. She writes from biography and family history but speaks the universal. Images collide and morph into each other and language and syntax warp away and back into common tongue. I particularly liked:

- Another Heaven
- Original Bones
- After All Have Gone
- Gray Vestige
- This Heft upon YOur Leaving
- Three

Sometimes a poem stretches too far and fails from the surrealism and the warped syntax. But the collection show more as a whole is a fine one. show less

Afterland is a collection I enjoyed for the way the poet pushes imagery into places that sparked my own imagination. It's also a privilege to be able to get a weighty window into Hmong culture and perspectives.