Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Afterland: Poems
    Unavailable
    Afterland: Poems
    Unavailable
    Afterland: Poems
    Ebook115 pages36 minutes

    Afterland: Poems

    By Mai Der Vang

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The 2016 winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, selected by Carolyn Forché

    When I make the crossing, you must not be taken no matter what
    the current gives. When we reach the camp,

    there will be thousands like us.
    If I make it onto the plane, you must follow me to the roads
    and waiting pastures of America.

    We will not ride the water today on the shoulders of buffalo
    as we used to many years ago, nor will we forage
    for the sweetest mangoes.

    I am refugee. You are too. Cry, but do not weep.

    —from “Transmigration”

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 4, 2017
    ISBN9781555979645
    Unavailable
    Afterland: Poems

    Related to Afterland

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      The painting is of a door, its wood so warpedwith moisture it cannot close. It stays ajar leaving a sliver of light—enough to suggestsomething sweet and almost unreachable behind the door—and you sit in yourroom working on the bills or those comforti

      4 min read

    • Article

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • Article

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: November 2020

      Nov 5, 2020

      Stop obsessively refreshing the New York Times's elections page, and check out these new books of poetry by Alice Quinn, Margaret Atwood, Yi Lei, Karina Borowicz, Valzhyna Mort, and Paul Celan. The post Must-Read Poetry: November 2020 appeared first

      6 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      Maybe every choice is in some way false,like whether to wonder or worry,or feel alive or alone in Clevelandor Memphis or any standard double queentrying to unwrap a tiny hotel soap.There’s always another one waitingin the dish like a stale communion

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      I’ve seen enough films where a character nickshimself shaving or maybe has a bread knife slip and the thinrun of blood is supposed to stand for some violence,for something he did and is desperateto cover up, but the truth will out—I’ve seen enough th

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      I have an endless appetite for starfruit,for biting my teeth into the universe and spitting outthe space junk, for licking the rings of my favorite planetsand never slicing my tongue. There’s a story I shareabout my birth where angels circle my dead

      2 min read

    • Article

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • Article

      Deadlines

      Oct 13, 2021

      Deadlines
      23 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems by Sheri Benning

      Mar 9, 2021

      the baby, name lost. 1906. Spring born,almond and blackthorn in bloom. Meadowsweet,chickweed, petals of milk on her lips. Spider-silk saliva from mouth to crab apple fists,on Mother’s lap, the train from Kiev to Minskafter the last harvest in Tiegeno

      2 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      Two Poems
      2 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2021

      It is all, allover the earth, underearth, a graveyard: tree ferns, trees—roots,bark, seeds—ancientlife that emerged from the sea, forestsflooded to swamps& bogs, transformed to peat, transformedagain, sunk, coveredwith layers of earth with strangeamp

      2 min read

    • Article

      Be Bold

      Jun 12, 2019

      Be Bold
      12 min read

    • Article

      Younger Than War

      Nov 9, 2023

      Younger Than War
      1 min read

    Reviews for Afterland

    4/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words