"What our lives permit us to perceive as givens, Nguyen reveals as mere conditions, inextricably tied to and guided by greater forces?from the economy to the environment, from the Mayan predictions to the menstrual cycle, from the weight of history to the burden of the future." “Michael Brodeur,The Boston Globe

The poems inViolet Energy Ingots contain a sense of dis-ease, rupture, things frayed, and grief?as love shimmers the edges. Ryo Yamaguchi describes Nguyen’s writing as “a kind of stuttering with intelligences, impressions, and emotions flaring up as the words find their pathways.” As grounded in the earth as in the stars, her poems are reminders of the possibilities of contemplation in every space and moment.

A Brief History of War

And what if Jupiter
is your faith

a balloon
but I call you

by the improper
names I'm stained

by the world here
To be brave and endure

the losing    To be brave
and be the losing

Luck    Brutal

Born in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, DC area,Hoa Nguyen studied Poetics at New College of California in San Francisco. With the poet Dale Smith, Nguyen foundedSkanky Possum, a poetry journal and book imprint in Austin, TX, their home for fourteen years. She is the author of several poetry collections, most recentlyRed Juice: Poems 1998-2008 andAs Long as Trees Last. She lives in Toronto, Ontario where she curates a reading series and teaches poetics privately and at Ryerson University.

HOA NGUYEN is the author of several books of poetry, including As Long As Trees Last, Red Juice, and Violet Energy Ingots, which was a finalist for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize. As a public proponent and advocate of contemporary poetry, she has served as guest editor for The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2018 and performed and lectured at numerous institutions, including Princeton University, Bard College, Poet’s House, and the Banff Centre’s Writers Studio. Winner of a 2019 Pushcart Prize and a 2020 Neustadt International Prize for Literature nominee, she has received grants and fellowships from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the MacDowell Colony, and the Millay Colony for the Arts. Her writing has garnered attention from such outlets as PBS NewsHour, Granta, The Walrus Magazine, the New York Times, and Poetry, among others. Born in the Mekong Delta and raised and educated in the United States, Nguyen has lived in Canada since 2011.

Hoa Nguyen's profile page

"What our lives permit us to perceive as givens, Nguyen reveals as mere conditions, inextricably tied to and guided by greater forces?from the economy to the environment, from the Mayan predictions to the menstrual cycle, from the weight of history to the burden of the future."
?Michael Brodeur,The Boston Globe

"Hoa Nguyen's poems probe dailiness to divorce us from our base assumptions about how language might present the world to us. Her poems are also funny, and they strangely develop their own language games which comprise some of the most inviting lyrics I've found in a living poet."
?Joshua Marie Wilkinson,Bookslut

"[Hoa Nguyen's poems] impart a sense of how one might look at the various parts of a life and let them speak out without settling into simple dichotomies."
?American Poets

"Nguyen makes poetry that sticks in the heart and the craw, and she deserves to be widely and aggressively read."
?Seth Abramson,Huffington Post

"Nguyen remains one of the most powerful, vivid, and even visceral contemporary poets working today."
?Dan Shewan,The Rumpus

"[I]n her spare, wry way she’s such a careful observer that the reader feels immersed in life’s most quotidian details, its hurts, and rocky hopes."
?Barbara Hoffert,Library Journal

"What our lives permit us to perceive as givens, Nguyen reveals as mere conditions, inextricably tied to and guided by greater forces—from the economy to the environment, from the Mayan predictions to the menstrual cycle, from the weight of history to the burden of the future."
—Michael Brodeur,The Boston Globe

"Hoa Nguyen's poems probe dailiness to divorce us from our base assumptions about how language might present the world to us. Her poems are also funny, and they strangely develop their own language games which comprise some of the most inviting lyrics I've found in a living poet."
—Joshua Marie Wilkinson,Bookslut

"[Hoa Nguyen's poems] impart a sense of how one might look at the various parts of a life and let them speak out without settling into simple dichotomies."
—American Poets

"Nguyen makes poetry that sticks in the heart and the craw, and she deserves to be widely and aggressively read."
—Seth Abramson,Huffington Post

"Nguyen remains one of the most powerful, vivid, and even visceral contemporary poets working today."
—Dan Shewan,The Rumpus

"[I]n her spare, wry way she’s such a careful observer that the reader feels immersed in life’s most quotidian details, its hurts, and rocky hopes."
—Barbara Hoffert,Library Journal