We get it: it can be daunting to dip your toes into poetry. You may not be sure where to start. That’s why H&H Books started a new book club: Poetry is for Everyone.
Our second meeting will be Saturday, May 17 at 2 PM at Valerio Coffee Roasters (2329 Frankford Avenue). We’ll discuss Root Fractures by Diana Khoi Nguyen.
H&H staffers (and poets!) Kristen and Shoshana will ask questions & facilitate discussion, and participants will share their thoughts and impressions of the month’s selection. There’ll be a brief writing exercise, too.
Attendance is free, but registration on Eventbrite is recommended.
Copies of Root Fractures will be available at H&H Books (2230 Frankford Avenue). Stop by and pick one up, or pay for your copy in advance on Eventbrite—we’ll email you once it’s in stock. Participants are highly encouraged to read the book before the meeting in order to participate fully.
Need further enticement? Book club attendees will receive 10% off drinks at Valerio during our meeting!
Questions? DM @theheadandthehand or@booksby_kb, or email events@theheadandthehand.com.
About the Book:
In Root Fractures, National Book Award finalist Diana Khoi Nguyen excavates the moments of rupture in a family: a mother who was forced underground after the Fall of Saigon, a father who engineered a new life in California as an immigrant, a brother who cut himself out of every family picture before cutting himself out of their lives entirely. And as new generations of the family come of age, opportunities to begin anew blend with visitations from the past. Through poems of disarming honesty and personal risk, Nguyen examines what takes root after a disaster and how we can make a story out of the broken pieces of our lives.
As Terrance Hayes writes, "'There is nothing that is not music' for this poet. Poetry is found in the gaps, silences, and ruptures of history." This astonishing second collection renders poetry into an act of kintsugi, embellishing what is broken in a family's legacy so that it can be seen in a new light.
About the Author:
Poet and multimedia artist Diana Khoi Nguyen was born and raised in California. Her debut poetry collection Ghost Of was selected by Terrance Hayes for the Omnidawn Open Contest and was a finalist for the National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It received the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Colorado Book Award. A Kundiman fellow and member of the Vietnamese diasporic artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s), Nguyen's other honors include awards from the 92Y "Discovery" Poetry Contest, Key West Literary Seminars, and Academy of American Poets. She teaches creative writing at Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.