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A review by kdawn999
Yellow Rain: Poems by Mai Der Vang
3.0
This book is formally and thematically ambitious, and I admire the level of documentary research of this poet. If you do a cursory internet search on “yellow rain” you won’t find much. Quite a lot of US government information is classified. The Harvard scientist who concludes the yellow rain was merely bee feces has the biggest voice on the topic, and he is completely dismissive of the Hmong stories about this attack/disaster, thousands of whom were displaced because of it. Somewhere out there is a buried Radiolab podcast from 2012 (referenced in this book) in which they invited a prominent Hmong writer and her uncle to the discussion only to dismiss their claims as “heresay.” This book has made me very interested in this history, and I would love to read any recorded oral histories that exist on this event—I just don’t know where to find those yet.
Even though this work sheds light on such an important topic, I feel the poetic form is a risky one to mix with journalism. The most informative parts of the collection are the epigraphs and prose textual excerpts documenting the recorded history. I had a very well-educated discussion group to talk with about this book, and even then some who relied only on factual information from the text thought the poet was accusing the US of dropping the chemicals on Laos in this incident—which isn’t the claim. I think a creative non-fiction essay would have been the better route to go with the story. The poems and their disruptive lineation also weren’t generally my aesthetic preference, though they were plenty accomplished.
I can see why poems may be a perfect way to express the collective misery of a predominantly oral tribal culture, but it irks me that this very important telling of history could be misread. For this discomfort I’m giving just 3 stars, but this is an important work and the discussion group I had was excellent.
Even though this work sheds light on such an important topic, I feel the poetic form is a risky one to mix with journalism. The most informative parts of the collection are the epigraphs and prose textual excerpts documenting the recorded history. I had a very well-educated discussion group to talk with about this book, and even then some who relied only on factual information from the text thought the poet was accusing the US of dropping the chemicals on Laos in this incident—which isn’t the claim. I think a creative non-fiction essay would have been the better route to go with the story. The poems and their disruptive lineation also weren’t generally my aesthetic preference, though they were plenty accomplished.
I can see why poems may be a perfect way to express the collective misery of a predominantly oral tribal culture, but it irks me that this very important telling of history could be misread. For this discomfort I’m giving just 3 stars, but this is an important work and the discussion group I had was excellent.