Mai Der Vang | Maiv Dawb Vaj

📢 Special event announcement! 📢 On Nov. 6th, join @maidervang.bsky.social & Tiffany Chung for a celebration of their collaborative, limited-edition Arion Press broadside. Get tickets:

www.eventbrite.com/e/artist-tal...

Earth Versed: 10 New Poetry Books About Our Relationship With Nature • The Revelator From a collection set in a landfill to an author’s cultural exploration of a critically endangered species, these books celebrate Earth and mourn its destruction.

Earth Versed: 10 New Poetry Books About Our Relationship With Nature -- by me @therevelator.org featuring @mahaila.bsky.social @maidervang.bsky.social @monaarshiwrites.bsky.social @karenmccarthywoolf.bsky.social @whitneyhanson.bsky.social @mariaschrater.bsky.social therevelator.org/environmenta...

Grid of six previews featuring book covers in the current edition of Rhino Reviews.

RHINO Reviews' Summer Issue is live! Featuring @rhonierika.bsky.social‬, Lauren K. Watel, Ariana Reines, ‪@megg-bean.bsky.social‬, @maidervang.bsky.social‬, and Mia Malhotra.

Catch the hottest poetry summer reads here: bit.ly/RhinoRev

US Proxy War Displaced My Family 50 Years Ago. We Still Live in the Wreckage. As the daughter of Hmong refugees, I know the traumatic consequences of American foreign policy.

"I will keep haunting the war and I will keep digging into its wound..."

@truthout.org published my essay on the 50th anniversary to the end of the US wars in Southeast Asia. Here's to remembrance of May 1975 and all that preceded it and that followed.

truthout.org/articles/us-...

Such a joy to talk with @maidervang.bsky.social about this beautiful collection (@graywolfpress.bsky.social) for my beloved @chicagorevbooks.bsky.social.

“Somewhere in that daydream or meditation, I begin to channel ideas, words, phrases, and it often feels as if my ancestors are working with me and through me to say what needs to be said…” writes @maidervang.bsky.social, author of Primordial (@graywolfpress.bsky.social). More: at.pw.org/WRVang

So grateful for you <3

Cover image of PRIMORDIAL by Mai Der Vang, which features a stylized camera trap photo of the saola.

Happy pub day to @maidervang.bsky.social!

PRIMORDIAL is out today via @graywolfpress.bsky.social.

When I saw draft1 I was staggered and astonished, and somehow, even though I knew the content of what I read, I saw her, the work, the struggle, and the saola anew and brilliantly.
✨✨✨✨✨

Happy pub day to my book PRIMORDIAL! It's out today from @graywolfpress.bsky.social. Sharing this moment with my saola plushie, courtesy of the Saola Foundation for Annamite Mountains Conservation ✨

Info/order: www.graywolfpress.org/books/primor...

3/6 @ 7 PM | St. Paul, MN East Side Freedom Library w/ Chaun Webster Book sales by SubText 3/7 @ 12 PM | Madison, WI UW-Madison Center for Southeast Asian Studies 3/7 @ 7 PM | Spring Green, WI Arcadia Books w/ William Robichaud 3/15 @ 7 PM | San Fran, CA Medicine for Nightmares Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network Reading Series 3/28 @ 9 AM | LA, CA AWP Conference “The Art of Noticing in the Age of Disappearance” 4/4 | Redding, CA Shasta Community College 4/12 | Grass Valley, CA Sierra Poetry Festival 4/22 @ 6:30 PM | NY, NY McNally Jackson (Seaport) co-hosted by Asian American Writers’ Workshop w/ Monica Sok 5/7 @ 7 PM | Seattle, WA Elliott Bay Book Company w/ Jane Wong

See @maidervang.bsky.social on tour:

www.graywolfpress.org/events

The cover of Shubha Sunder's novel "Optional Practical Training" has a see-saw tipping to the left, with a small red square on one end and a larger green square on the other end. The title appears in black font (except for the first letter of each word, which is in green) against a cream background. The author's name appears at the bottom in red. The cover is shown against a teal background, with Graywolf's logo in the bottom right corner.

The cover of Mai Der Vang's poetry collection "Primordial" shows a densely illustrated forest scene, with the saola animal appearing in the bottom right corner. The illustration uses green and dark brown tones. The title appears in a pale yellow font, and the author's name in an orange font.

Happy pub. day to @shubhasunder.bsky.social's OPTIONAL PRACTICAL TRAINING and @maidervang.bsky.social's PRIMORDIAL! 🎉🎉

Death in Captivity, a Surrender

Sharing a new poem, with thanks to @thenation.com ✨

It was my pleasure! Congratulations ✨

PRIMORDIAL!
@maidervang.bsky.social latest collection via @graywolfpress.bsky.social comes out in less than a month and she’s out touring soon.

Upcoming book tour for PRIMORDIAL, with thanks to @graywolfpress.bsky.social as well as the organizations and fellow writers who will be joining me to share in the release of this new book. ❤️

“You kept calm in the company of humans who peered inside you to find a spirit imbued with imagery of gods.”

—Mai Der Vang (@maidervang.bsky.social), “Tame External Features Come Birthing Endangered in a Cage”

❤️❤️❤️

Photo of saola: camera trap, 1999, Ban Vangban village, Bolikhamxay province, central Laos. Courtesy of William Robichaud, Wildlife Conservation Society. www.graywolfpress.org/books/primor...

thankful to Bill Robichaud, saola conservationist, and the Saola Foundation, for their continued efforts; thankful to Hoa Nguyen and Douglas Kearney for their generous blurbs; thankful to my family, and to all of you, dear readers. Thank you and onward.

I’m thankful to Carmen Giménez, Jeff Shotts, and many others at @graywolfpress.bsky.social for giving this book a home; thankful to my partner and courageous fellow poet @anthonycody.bsky.social along with my son Máximo who helped steer this book along in their own special ways;

I thought about the Secret War, too, as I always seem to do, with this year marking the 50th anniversary of the end to the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Laos.

I thought about how the environment, the landscape, the flora, and the wildlife all become casualties of war, forced to evolve or go into hiding to survive extermination.

I wondered about the ways that a war-torn landscape might also serve as a vibrant ecosystem and sanctuary supporting rare species like saola.

My third book, PRIMORDIAL, comes out March 4, 2025 from @graywolfpress.bsky.social. The book is about saola, a highly rare and critically endangered animal endemic to the Annamite Mountains between Laos and Vietnam, an animal I have long thought about since my first book.

In light of all there will be to ponder and act upon this year and now, in what has already proven to be hard and harder times, in an era of continual uprooting and devastation, I am grateful to share with you all another book of poetry, a bittersweet offering.

I thought about the Secret War, too, as I always seem to do, with this year marking the 50th anniversary of the end to the U.S. wars in Vietnam and Laos.

I thought about how the environment, the landscape, the flora, and the wildlife all become casualties of war, forced to evolve or go into hiding to survive extermination.

I wondered about the ways that a war-torn landscape might also serve as a vibrant ecosystem and sanctuary supporting rare species like saola.

My third book, PRIMORDIAL, comes out March 4, 2025 from @graywolfpress.bsky.social. The book is about saola, a highly rare and critically endangered animal endemic to the Annamite Mountains between Laos and Vietnam, an animal I have long thought about since my first book.

With gratitude to @agnimagazine.bsky.social -- sharing here two poems from my new book, in light of it all.

agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/chant...

agnionline.bu.edu/poetry/node-...