Thursday, October 9, 2014

RED JUICE ( HOA ) ~










Hoa Nguyen has it, the modern click, furthering what has been started by Notley, Mayer, Kyger.
 Hoa is the next step.
 She's amazingly ballsy in the right way on the page.
And with such immaculate swank and precision.
 Half the time not quite knowing exactly what she is doing, which is the best way, refreshingly, she is simply being.
 That's not exactly easy.

[ BA ]







UPSIDEDOWN AGAIN




Held by the roots       like the cilantro

beaten in my mortar

Make a chicken marinade and broil

Could pluck feathers after scalding?



O circled fucked-up change



which is the mother of us

and ethics       What of that

Chicken feathers

to grow your organic vegetables



The wild will root it out

The pigs dig them up               your roots

Lovely smiling pig to string up on a pole

Fatten you          o lovely



I am the omnipotent narrator noting

the age-wrinkles around his neck



The play we make in the snow in Colorado

a survivalist trick          A snow-made den

to live in           or wave your umbrella

from your stranded car

at the rescuing helicopter



I can't stomach all these circles

or my head noise

even cartoon songs

from animated Cat in the Hat

in the woods walking the woo woo

labyrinth       (alone)



I have fetal tissue in my brain

literally



and Chinquapin Oak on my placenta in the rain



It hasn't rained like this

since they were born

meaning our boys



A woman is the person

the first person

like a chicken before an egg







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Hoa Nguyen
Red Juice
Poems 1998-2008
Wave Books, 2014