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I think I speak
for many when I say

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it's difficult in
this day and age

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to read an entire book
of poetry in one sitting.

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Yet with Susan Nguyen's debut
collection, Dear Diaspora,

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when I looked down,
I was on page one

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and when I looked back up,
I had finished the book.

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Susan's poems brought to life
a period of time in my own

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that was quite lonely, that
I kept hidden within myself.

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A childhood of silence,
questions, and noticing things

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I could not explain.

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Yet it felt like the
collection's title alone, Dear

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Diaspora, was addressed to
me, a daughter of immigrants

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in a majority white
Virginia town.

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And the poems were
telling me, listen,

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you're not making any of this
up because I've been there too.

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I love how Dear Diaspora
opens with questions

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that probe beneath the surface.

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Like, do you feel safe
wrecking language?

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When did you lose
the color green?

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And introduces us to a
character, Suzi, who, quote,

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"is not afraid of the dark or
the things that move in its

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current."

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Suzi's observations of her
Vietnamese diaspora upbringing

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in America, and the
risks and losses

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it poses for her and her
family, create an opening

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within language itself.

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Susan's more recent poems, which
draw their inspiration from her

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mother's English language
learning workbook from

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the '90s, continue along
this thread of curiosity,

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of noticing and questioning.

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These new poems bend
preexisting formulaic approaches

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to language, forging
space for what

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lies beneath resilience,
grief, possibility, defiance,

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and reinvention.

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I feel so lucky to have
connected with Susan,

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not only on the page,
but off of it as well.

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And her presence
has enriched me,

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like the best writerly
friendships do,

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as both a poet and a person.

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Indeed, Susan works
diligently to foster community

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among and uplift the
work of poets and writers

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through her role as senior
editor at Hayden's Ferry Review,

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an international literary
journal published

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by Arizona State University.

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In addition to her book
Dear Diaspora, which

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won the Prairie Schooner
Book Prize and Outstanding

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Achievement Award from the
Association of Asian-American

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Studies, a New Mexico
Arizona Book Award,

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and was a finalist for
the Julie Suk Award,

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Susan's poems have
been nominated

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for Best of the Net
and a Pushcart Prize,

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and have appeared in Poetry
magazine, the Academy

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of American Poets
Poem-a-Day series,

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the American Poetry Review,
and many other places.

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Please join me in extending a
warm welcome to Susan Nguyen.

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[APPLAUSE]

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