documentary poetics

Mai Der Vang reads from her second book, Yellow Rain (2021), a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize. In this collection, Vang reinvestigates the "yellow rain" incident, in which a chemical biological weapon was unleashed upon Hmong refugees as they fled Laos near the end of the Vietnam War. Grounded in a documentary approach to poetry, Vang's poems center the testimonies of the Hmong, whose voices were erased in the subsequent geopolitical fervor around the investigation. This reading was originally given alongside Anthony Cody.

Niki Herd reads new, uncollected poems together with sections of The Stuff of Hollywood (2024), her book-length documentary poem on American violence. Throughout, her poems incorporate found texts as they address racism, violence against Black Americans, the January 6 insurrection, increasing isolation, and questions of complicity.