Poet Mai Der Vang was born and grew up in Fresno,
California. As she describes in the Spring / Summer issue of American Poets
Magazine, she was about 10 years old when she wandered into her uncle’s house
to look at his books. And there on a shelf, among the textbooks he was using
for his courses in mechanics at a local community college, were several
National Geographic magazines dating back to the 1960s. What each of the issues
had in common were stories about the Hmong people of Southeast
Asia.
 |
| Mai Der Vang |
For Vang, it was
a life-changing event. She discovered where she came from. And she would also
discover where she was going. And her discovery would lead her to poetry and
other literary writing and the Walt
Whitman Award.
Afterland is Vang’s first collection of poems, and
much of not all of its 57 poems is about the Hmong people. They live (and
lived) in southeastern China, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. During the
Vietnam War, thousands were recruited by the CIA to fighter both the North
Vietnamese and the communist Pathet Lao. Without U.S. support and protection,
the Hmong would find themselves especially vulnerable.
To continue
reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak
Poetry.
No comments:
Post a Comment