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lizzie24601's review
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.0
A good poetry collection! I had never learned much about the Hmong people before picking up this collection. I especially enjoyed:
Dear Soldier of the Secret War
Beyond the Backyard
Ambush
Calling the Lost
Your Mountain Lies Down With You
Dear Soldier of the Secret War
Beyond the Backyard
Ambush
Calling the Lost
Your Mountain Lies Down With You
jnepal's review
3.0
A few lines I appreciated:
Dear Exile~
“It’s when the banyan must leave
Relearn to cathedral its roots.” ~ notice how she verbs the noun :)
Cipher Song~
“Forge paper from our aprons, and our
bodies will be books...” ~ Come on, right? Our bodies will be books! :)
I Shovel into the Heart to Find its Naked Face ~
“This burns in heaven with
Remembrance of dust...”
Dear Exile~
“It’s when the banyan must leave
Relearn to cathedral its roots.” ~ notice how she verbs the noun :)
Cipher Song~
“Forge paper from our aprons, and our
bodies will be books...” ~ Come on, right? Our bodies will be books! :)
I Shovel into the Heart to Find its Naked Face ~
“This burns in heaven with
Remembrance of dust...”
readingwithk's review
5.0
Oh my goodness! This is one of the best poetry collections I've read in a while. Mai Der Vang uses her poetry as a vessel for storytelling for her Hmong heritage and the refugee crisis from Laos. She opens the collection with stories of terror and follows people's journeys from refugees to new citizens. Her imagery is absolutely stunning. One of my favorite examples is, "I'll count the weeks, months,/Unfurling each numbered day in my hair./ Frost ribbons inside my brain,/ Canals push up my leg."
There were multiple lines in each poem that had me gasp. I loved it. If you're a fan of poetry, this is a must read.
There were multiple lines in each poem that had me gasp. I loved it. If you're a fan of poetry, this is a must read.
elizabethlk's review
5.0
I find that I tend to deeply connect with poetry about history (perhaps because I do love both poetry and studying history), and this is no exception. Afterland is a beautiful collection. It has a wonderful sense of rhythm and style, the imagery is incredibly evocative, and the subject is powerful with both a large scope and a deeply personal perspective. A truly excellent collection.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
wcsheffer's review
4.0
Vang writes hauntingly personal, historic, and transcendent poems. She writes with striking language that left me gasping for air on my commute. Her poems take effort to read (I often whispered them out loud to myself) but the work pays off, leaving the reader with gorgeous verse describing her life, the history of Hmong people in the United States, and the pain that can exist in quotidian life. Many poems stood out to me but I found the concluding long poem also titled "Afterland" to be particularly haunting. Another great 2017 poetry release from Graywolf Press!
qqjj's review
2.0
I am not a confident poetry reader/reviewer, but I struggled to get into most of this. You can tell the poet intensely feels the dislocation of herself, her family, and her culture, which made me want to like this collection. Unfortunately, many poems reminded me of refrigerator magnet poetry. They created one strange image after another, but they were so disconnected (or I couldn't see the connections) that they felt incomplete and I couldn't glean much meaning. I liked a few though (favorites were Grand Mal and Gray Vestige). These were ones that had more of a through-line and a more specific subject, so I could follow the arc of the poem.
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