Böcker av Mong-Lan

Mong-Lan's new collection, Dusk Aflame: poems & art, is a bittersweet melange, a delirium of experiences and memories. Buenos Aires looms large with elegiac, nocturnal footsteps: on the edge of chaos and accidents waiting to happen. Buenos Aires, womb and capital of the tango, a melancholic music and sultry dance created by men and women who felt a need for the embrace. Death aspires to be a character here, and Dusk, too, female, animistic. An elegy for all that exists only in memory. On a lighter note, Mong-Lan continues with her cherished theme--love poems to nourishing delectables, like persimmon, rice, and sesame seeds. Dusk Aflame includes odes to the South, New Orleans, Houston, Galveston, and an island in Thailand. Jazz in poetry, in rhythm to the syncopations of life, to the tango, all comes together in a voice and vision that is uniquely Mong-Lan's. Mong-Lan's virtuoso brush and ink paintings accompany her poems in a poetic dance of movement, providing a visual resonance and portent to her work.

In Mong-Lan's new collection of poems, One Thousand Minds Brimming: poems & art, desire, love and mayhem lay bare 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. Mong-Lan's artwork has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States such as the Dallas Museum of Art, and in public exhibitions in Tokyo, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Seoul and Bali. ". . . 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. ". . . 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.

An alluring gem of a chapbook, "Love Poem to Ginger & Other Poems: poetry & paintings" follows Mong-Lan's much-lauded "Love Poem to Tofu & Other Poems." An absolute treasure tapestry of poems and paintings, this pocket-sized edition calls joy by its true name and makes pleasure an art. "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 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

In this collection of poems, the grainy strangeness of the modern world is transformed into a place at once knowable and enduring. The author conveys the certainty that even when the world stops making sense, decency and beauty somehow survive.