Poet Hoa Nguyen to Read at UMass Amherst Visiting Writers Series

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AMHERST, Mass. – The University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA for Poets and Writers presents a reading by poet Hoa Nguyen on Thursday, Oct. 18 at 8 p.m. in Old Chapel.

Born in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, D.C. area, Nguyen is the author of five books of poetry, including As Long As Trees Last and Red Juice: Poems 1998-2008. Her most recent book, Violet Energy Ingots, published by Wave Books, was shortlisted for the 2017 Griffin Prize for Poetry. She teaches creative writing and poetics at Ryerson University, Bard College and Miami University as well as a popular long-running, private workshop.  

Poet Ocean Vuong describes Nguyen’s work as “a poetics insistent on fragmentation and rupture as a mode of thinking and being in the world–one where, paradoxically, the very notion of fragmentation is, in itself, a whole. Her poems remind us that meaning, as we understand it, does not have to adhere to standard conventions of syntax–thereby faithfully echoing the most pervasive and perennial human emotions of loss, displacement, serration and, perhaps most vital of all, a necessary sense of wonder and joy before the world. Her work is rich with the permission-giving power of alternative thinking and feeling–and is vital for anyone who cares about language and its possibilities.”

Nguyen is reading as part of the MFA program’s Visiting Writers Series. Celebrating its 54th year, the series presents emerging and established writers of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. The Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the MFA for Poets and Writers and the Juniper Initiative, and made possible by support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the UMass Arts Council and the English department.

The reading is free and open to the public.