One Thousand Minds Brimming: Poems & Art

In Mong-Lan's new collection of poems, One Thousand Minds Brimming: poems & art, the layers of desire, delight and love, are laid bare over reality's vicissitudes. Mong-Lan's observations about personal history and past wars in Vietnam and Cambodia are poignant, indeed heartbreaking. These poems defy gravity and darkness, and emerge undiminished; more so, like diamonds. They illuminate the spirit, and dissect the human heart with grace, humor and clarity. "In spritely lines that mime the leap of neural impulse across synapses into the fractal branching of perception, Mong-Lan's poems are an extension of her dancer's body in space, leaving the trace of her physicality to emanate as heat and sensation on the tongue. . . . One Thousand Minds Brimming reminds us of the primal power of poetry to celebrate and to question our ephemerality, and to help us better revel in our senses even while reminding us to mourn the very condition that makes each shitake mushroom and each marinated onion so heartbreakingly pungent and poignant. A true original, unafraid of sentiment and at the height of her artistic prowess, Mong-Lan's new book proves she remains one of our leading poets."--Ravi Shankar, editor of Drunken Boat. "Mong-Lan's poems are fresh and real as a street, full of the seriousness of pleasure. She has the same sense of joy that Kenneth Koch loved in the courage to sing, happiness of St.-John Perse. The courage of Frank O'Hara who said that the smallest idea in one's own head was better than an old idea in some other brain. The wars and horrors of wars are here, but even disasters and disappearance doesn't stop the poet from celebrating lemons and vegetables I do not know. The Chinese speak of the three perfections: poetry, painting and calligraphy. But Mong-Lan speaks of the great imperfections that are better for being so. Her poems are full of the bright primaries of her brushstrokes. . . . I praise these poems of praise which collapse distance and makes us feel, as O'Hara seemed to say, poetry is just a telephone call away."--David Shapiro 9780982822722 0982822723 155 BOOK Poetry NOT_MATURE http://books.google.com/books/content?id=n97XoAEACAAJ&printsec=frontcover&img=1&zoom=5&source=gbs_api en

• | Author: Mong-Lan
• | Publisher: Valiant Press
• | Publication Date: Jul 07, 2014
• | Number of Pages: 155 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0982822723
• | ISBN-13: 9780982822722