Afterland : poems
/ Mai Der Vang
- Minneapolis, MN : Graywolf Press , 2017
- 94 p. ; 23 cm
Another heaven -- Dear soldier of the secret war ; Light from a burning citadel ; Tilting our tears on a pendulum of salt ; Water grave ; Carry the beacon ; To the placenta of return ; Yellow rain ; Lima site ; Transmigration ; Toward home ; Dear exile, ; Matriarch ; Beyond the backyard ; Sojourn with snow -- Original bones ; The hour after stars ; My attire is the kingdom ; After all have gone ; Grand mal ; Last body ; Gray vestige ; Heart swathing in late summer ; Meditation of the lioness ; Days of '87 ; At birth I was given a book ; Late harvest ; Cipher song -- I am the whole defense ; Diadem on lined paper ; Ear to the night ; Phantom talker ; This heft upon your leaving ; Final dispatch from Laos ; Terminus ; I the body of Laos and all my UXOs ; With animal ; Ambush ; A mouth and its name ; To the longhorn Hmong ; Mother of people without script ; When the mountains rose beneath us, we became the valley -- I shovel into the heart to find its naked face ; Three ; Crash calling ; Thrasher ; Progeny ; The howler ; Offering the ox ; Dear shaman, ; Dressing the departed ; In the swallow's breath it is you ; Calling the lost ; The spirit meal ; Gathering the last of the dark ; Your mountain lies down with you -- Afterland.
Afterland is a powerful, essential collection of poetry that recounts with devastating detail the Hmong exodus from Laos and the fate of thousands of refugees seeking asylum. Mai Der Vang is telling the story of her own family, and by doing so, she also provides an essential history of the Hmong culture's ongoing resilience in exile. Many of these poems are written in the voices of those fleeing unbearable violence after U.S. forces recruited Hmong fighters in Laos in the Secret War against communism, only to abandon them after that war went awry. That history is little known or understood, but the three hundred thousand Hmong now living in the United States are living proof of its aftermath. With poems of extraordinary force and grace, Afterland holds an original place in American poetry and lands with a sense of humanity saved, of outrage, of a deep tradition broken by war and ocean but still intact, remembered, and lived.