[APPLAUSE]
OK, I've heard this microphone is really sensitive.
Does that sound good, is that good?
OK.
I'm really excited to introduce Hieu Minh Nguyen.
His poems comprise a landscape of dandelion weeds,
ivory boyfriends, ducks swallowing Styrofoam shards,
and accents bleached out of mouths.
So much is dead but still walking,
intimacy becomes sucking bullets out.
About Hieu's first full length collection,
This Way to the Sugar, Sierra DeMulder writes,
"Each poem will thump inside you like a new heart."
Hieu himself offers, "These poems don't smell good,
but they have a nice smile.
These poems don't understand why they're still breathing.
These poems miss you terribly."
Hieu's work is honest and devastating.
It conveys a sense of humor while centering
on themes of survival through blatant structural violence.
It is no wonder that This Way to the Sugar
was a finalist for both the Minnesota Book Award
and the Lambda Literary Award.
He has received the Minnesota Emerging Writers
grant from the Loft Literary Center, and now joins us--
we're so lucky-- as the University of Arizona Poetry
Center's 2015 summer resident.
Please help me welcome Hieu.
[CLAP]