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[Dusk Aflame: poems & art] [One Thousand Minds Brimming] [ Tango, Tangoing: Poetry & Art ][Tango Tangueando: poemas & dibujos] [Song of the Cicadas] [ Why is the Edge Always Windy? ][ Vietnamese Translations ] [ Japanese Translations ][Publications]

“Mong-Lan’s poems are fresh and real as a street, full of the seriousness of pleasure. She has the same sense of joy that Kenneth Koch loved in the courage to sing, happiness of St.-John Perse. The courage of Frank O’Hara who said that the smallest idea in one's own head was better than an old idea in some other brain. The wars and horrors of wars are here, but even disasters and disappearance doesn't stop the poet from celebrating lemons and vegetables I do not know. The Chinese speak of the three perfections: poetry, painting and calligraphy. But Mong-Lan speaks of the great imperfections that are better for being so. Her poems are full of the bright primaries of her brushstrokes. . . . I praise these poems of praise which collapse distance and makes us feel, as O’Hara seemed to say, poetry is just a telephone call away.”—David Shapiro, poet, critic, professor, New York City.

". . . A true original, unafraid of sentiment and at the height of her artistic prowess, Mong-Lan’s new book proves she remains one of our leading poets.”—Ravi Shankar, poet & editor of Drunken Boat, Central Connecticut State University.

" . . . I admire both the brushwork and the very effective use of space on the page as a visual and musical element. The writing is crisp, vivid, lucid, worldly, sexy and smart. . . . " — Stephen Kessler, poet & translator.

"A gifted poet of aliveness and marvelous word telemetries, and so much else. Etherly precision, chest-deep, between the ojos—wonderment. The truth serum delivered . . ."—Dave Brinks

" . . . Beautiful poems, wonderful drawings & calligraphy." — Kenneth Fields, poet, Stanford University.

ISBN-10: 0982822723
ISBN-13: 978-0-9828227-2-2
Pub date: September 2014
155 pages, 42 illustrations by the artist / poet
Valiant Press

Award-winning spoken word poetry coupled with enchanting
Jazz Piano. Sultry, profound, comical, quick-witted poems from
Mong-Lan’s book, One Thousand Minds Brimming: poetry & art,
and Tango, Tangoing: poetry & art.

"In spritely lines that mime the leap of neural impulse across synapses into the fractal branching of perception, Mong-Lan’s poems are an extension of her dancer's body in space, leaving the trace of her physicality to emanate as heat and sensation on the tongue. Her sensual love poems to food evoke Neruda's elemental odes  but also partake of a distinct sense of place, one more fully elaborated on the startling title sequence of poems addressed to and in conversation with Bangkok, whose "luxuriant ladyboys," "ten thousand barge" and "great man-eating wave[s]" enthrall and alarm us, or in a set of mystical poems arisen from the desert, where "insatiate cactus fester" and "wasps east the stars," or from the mountain, where "clustered knuckles blanket a land of haiku." One Thousand Minds Brimming reminds us of the primal power of poetry to celebrate and to question our ephemerality, and to help us better revel in our senses even while reminding us to mourn the very condition that makes each shitake mushroom and each marinated onion so heartbreakingly pungent and poignant. A true original, unafraid of sentiment and at the height of her artistic prowess, Mong-Lan’s new book proves she remains one of our leading poets.”—Ravi Shankar, poet & editor of Drunken Boat.

Listen: "Love Poem to Thick Rice Noodles" poetry recital and piano improvisation by Mong-Lan