Not Here

Hieu Minh Nguyen

• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781566895194
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Poesía

Not Here will be embraced to anyone who loved Prelude to Bruise —both use narrative biographical poems to address queerness and race, and growing up as a gay person of color in a white supremacist, heteronormative world. These poems are as accessible as Saeed Jones's, and as personal, and should anticipate as much enthusiasm from audiences who might not typically gravitate to poetry.
Hieu's self-effacing, half-abashed vulnerability, and his palpable desire for love and connection (both friend, family, and romantic) make for sincerely moving poetry. It's a rare collection that makes you ache along with the author, and feel invested in his happiness.
Hieu is a hugely successful advocate for his own work, and has a robust career as a touring poet (it's his primary source of income) so both his capacity to support the book with readings and his enthusiastic fan base should set the book up for significant sales, at events and otherwise.
Hieu is part of a cohort of poets (including this season's Justin Phillip Reed) whose work is flush with life and who are making a dynamic case for the continuing relevance of poetry as a form and as a mode of expression and connection.

Nguyễn

“It seems you’ve been looking out

one window, one moment all your life”

—Cathy Song

In the beginning: a throne, of course

set on fire.

By who?

A brother, maybe.

Blood, always.

:::

The origin, he once told me, is simple:

the name was a mask our ancestors hid behind

to escape retribution. After the dynasty crumbled

families across the empire unified under the name

under the fear of a flag

planted through a face.

:::

I sign my name & track its scent. It leads me

to the unmarked graves of our surnames

where I carve our initials into the stone.

H.M.N. + K.T.N.

:::

Asked by the parking lot boys

who chucked rocks at our heads

if we were brothers. Sort of, he’d laugh.

Our blood indistinguishable

on pavement.

:::

It was simple before: I could not love him

because he was a boy. I held his face

too close to mine. I hid

with our longing, underneath his bed.

When his father caught us, two flies drowning

in a dish of honey, he dragged us

onto the porch. Made us lie there

while he urinated on our backs.

:::

Hear a song about love found in war.

Heat of the Madame, madame—

Miss, miss. Vision in lantern light.

Hear a song about a soldier

about the men who’ve come to save her.

Hear a song about a child

with red lips. Opium poppies

pinned in her hair.

:::

I fled & did not return.

My mother crying on the telephone

Thank you for not killing my son.

Sent away to live in California

with his aunt. No good-bye, just a note

I cannot love you, if I love you, I will die.

For years I chose death.

:::

For years I refused to choose a bride.

My mother, persistent, leaving letters

& postcards on my pillow.

These women will love you.

Don’t you understand? People will kill you.

Your uncles, your father.

My defiance soiling the lace-

white landscape of her desires.

:::

What was I then if not my name?

A child of redacted blood.

& sure, I belong to history.

I belong to my mother’s fear.

:::

He got married, she reminds me.

Why can’t you?

:::

Pay attention, it’s simple: Bé Mỹ is what they named the children born in brothels to American soldiers. My aunt, Baby America, granted refuge by her name was my family’s greatest chance at a future. & isn’t that how we’re taught to survive? Hide? Or obediently follow the path paved by a white man’s desire?

:::

Made curious by loneliness, my mother asks, with...