Migrations & Other Exiles is now available from Lost Horse Press!
This collection was awarded the 2022 Idaho Prize for Poetry. It is a deeply personal collection that explores my father's death, my mother’s experience with domestic violence, the relationships of my youth, exile, and immigrant issues.
Click HERE to read more and order your copy.
Thank you to everyone who has supported my work and expressed interest in this collection.
"With a Bachelardian dreaminess and a poetic language that is both sensuous and incisive, Migrations and Other Exiles questions the contradictory nature of human love. Right from the opening poem, “Promise,” the speaker attempts to shape an unidentified other into a graceful swan-like survivor only to renege: “I carved her neck long/so that when the rains came / she might hold it above /water. You will not drown, / I promised her. But then her/ mouth and eyes filled and I/let them. What begins with hope, complex and lucent—a flight of spirit—often ends with the rarity or inability to fly: “Remember that one time / we flew? Like we were birds/ with thrift-store wings.” Other times, it’s the literal, hard-hitting world of self-harming burns and gunshots that violate the boundaries of self. Precise and elegant, redemptive in its musicality and stunning imagery, Migrations and Other Exiles is a remarkable, stand-out, collection." —Dzvinia Orlowsky, Final Judge for the Idaho Prize 2022
If you will be in Seattle for AWP23 in March, I would love to connect. I will also be signing books and reading poetry at this year's Artist Enclave Historic Kenwood Artist Studio Tour in my own hood on March 18 - 19. Huge thank you to Lost Horse Press and to the final judge Dzvinia Orlowsky for selecting this collection for the Idaho Prize for Poetry 2022.