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     behind the image, the imagination

                                                        --Mong-Lan

                                                     

 
Mong-Lan

Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art

Welcome to the tango, sensual, elusive and alluring. In Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art, Mong-Lan extends an invitation to explore with her the sensual world of Argentine tango through poetry and art. Her striking poetry and elegant pen & ink drawings of tango dancers illuminate and reveal this remarkable world in an original manner that captivates and intrigues, leaving you "breathless from its impassioned elaborations and imagistic intensity." Prize-winning poet, visual artist and Argentine tango dancer / teacher, Mong-Lan combines her talents and knowledge in one beautiful, luminous book.

In writing Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art, Mong-Lan pulls from her extensive training in the Argentine tango from her many visits to Buenos Aires, studying with the great masters of the dance.  The book is a lucid exploration of the roles of male and female, leader and follower, anima and animus.   Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art is a lyric meditation on the Argentine tango, a dance that is quickly sweeping people off their feet all over the world. 

Fully illustrated, 132 pages of scintillating poetry and art. ISBN-10: 0615188001 . ISBN-13: 978-0615188003

Ask for it at your favorite bookstore, or go online and order directly from bookstores such as Amazon.com

 

What poets and critics are saying:

"While the ostensible subject here is dance, Mong-Lan is brilliant at suggesting layered, ever-shifting perspectives, meanings, and voices.  These complex poems are, at times, aesthetic mediations, dissections of human relationships, internal monologues, and political inquiry. That Mong-Lan succeeds at such an ambitious project in writing that is visually striking, musically complex, unabashedly erotic and deeply intelligent, is testimony to her very great poetic talents.  This is a marvelous book, one I’ll return to again and again."--Kevin Prufer

"Mong-Lan’s lyric poetry is unlike any others.  The work sings, but it is not music alone that moves us; it’s what we experience through the speaker’s observational accuracy and emotional wisdom:   “The oscillatory / foolish / the insane / make their way / into tangos”  and “I would find you / locked in a mosquito’s eye.”  Consisting of three extraordinary poems about Argentine tango, the work is “muy generoso,” as she quotes the dance itself as being, in its sweep and precision.  The poems are not merely illustrative of the dance’s famous forwardness; they reveal the transformative power of the commitment the dance requires:  the finding of rhythm with another at the edge of mayhem, even as stillness is created at the center of the ochos, emblems of infinity, the dancers create on the floor."--Paul Hoover

"Improvisatory, epigrammatic, sensual, meditative, and always generous, Mong-Lan celebrates, as well as dissects, the intricacies and implications of the tango. Interweaving art with verse, this collection will leave you breathless from its impassioned elaborations and imagistic intensity."--Cyril Wong

 

Pen & Ink Drawings from Tango, Tangoing:

 
"Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art" by Mong-Lan
Mong-Lan Tango Drawing 1
Mong-Lan Tango Drawing 2
Mong-Lan Tango Drawing 3
 
 

 

Poetry Selections from the book:

Other poems from Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art have been published in The Colorado Review, New American Writing, North American Review, Pleiades, SOLO Magazine, and Volt.

 

 

 

Tangoing

 

 

In Buenos Aires  the tangueros are tangoing to the bandoneón’s beat  

violin’s abandon

  seductive net of music

 

Dancing with a restrained wildness  cunning  controlled 

          hearts full

 

elegantly these men & women   elegantly these bellies proudly protruding

beef-eating   dancing to the sensual tango

 

Most are genteel & do not steal other’s partners  do not stow

knives in their blood

 

 

Gliding to the bandoneón’s breath

 

pivoting   swift turns   slow   smooth   bitter   wild   excited

blind turns

 

Spinning night to dawn   their love-lives gouged on their faces   desperate

lines deeply

milongueros expose the history of Argentina

on their visages

 

 

Dancing rhythms that bodies unravel an unending night unparalleled 

oblivion & desire

 

desire to forget the lives

 

of misery           To forget    Menem 

the military dictatorship    disappearances    

life-savings & bonds lost

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

~

 

 

 

In the bay of Río de la Plata    tango was born 100 yrs ago   & carries on  

The tango of the lower classes  tango of the chic    often happens at night   in la madrugada         From Africa came its syncopated rhythms—

 

 

 

~

 

 

The night continues

endlessly

I begin

life over

the questions of my life

come to me in dreams

The questions

come & go  The dances

went

& came   The men

came & went

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~

 

 

The destitute  suddenly poorer

come & go at night

They sift through

trash  take paper  cardboard  & recyclables

away  leaving disposable trash

pilfered  like feathers

receiving a few pesos

for a few kilos

 

Courteous  some say  Buenas Noches

with soft eyes   Women & children

barrel away

paper    Men cart

away paper       Trash  picked at

vultures at dead bodies


 

 

 

 

 

 

~

 

Cab drivers do not have change for a 20 peso bill    A lack of effectivo

 

Anapestic   by magic   the city    the nation & its citizens keep on

 

 

Where is the fire?

 

At night fire burns

in trash bins on city streets   a huge pyre

waiting for its sacrifice

 

 

~

 

 

Out until 5 or 6 in the morning           milongueros

embrace sucking each other’s blood      They lean

towards each other’s hearts   plucking

    Perhaps they will follow each other

home   devour the other

 

Drinking each other’s glances & stares   deriving pleasure in dancing   embracing kicking

between each other’s legs   on crowded floors

 

Eyes scan:  whom to dance with   whom to avoid?

 

Tables & tables of hungry women   predatory men  courteous   disdainful

 

Around & around   people draw ochos    flick voleos   flicks of knives


 

 

 

 

 

 

~

 

 

Walls crumbling

 

 

I begin life over  I start

to read

skies  leaves  dawn

The questions of my life

float to me in tangos

The questions come

& go  the dreams

the men & women

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Buenos Aires, 2001-2004]

  
     
     
     
Copyright © 2001-2006  by Mong-Lan. All rights reserved.  Website created by Mong-Lan.
Please respect the fact that all artwork and writing (except where indicated) and poetry on this website are copyrighted by Mong-Lan. It may not be stored, displayed, published, reproduced, without her written permission.