Violet Energy Ingots

by Hoa Nguyen

"What our lives permit us to perceive as givens, Nguyen reveals as mere conditions, inextricably tied to and guided by greater forces—from the economy to the environment, from the Mayan predictions to the menstrual cycle, from the weight of history to the burden of the future." —Michael Brodeur, The Boston Globe

The poems in Violet Energy Ingots contain a sense of dis-ease, rupture, things frayed, and grief—as love shimmers the edges. Ryo Yamaguchi describes Nguyen’s writing as “a kind of stuttering with intelligences, impressions, and emotions flaring up as the words find their pathways.” As grounded in the earth as in the stars, her poems are reminders of the possibilities of contemplation in every space and moment.

A Brief History of War

And what if Jupiter
is your faith
a balloon
but I call you
by the improper
names I'm stained
by the world here
To be brave and endure
the losing    To be brave
and be the losing
Luck    Brutal

Born in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, DC area, Hoa Nguyen studied Poetics at New College of California in San Francisco. With the poet Dale Smith, Nguyen founded Skanky Possum, a poetry journal and book imprint in Austin, TX, their home for fourteen years. She is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Red Juice: Poems 1998-2008 and As Long as Trees Last. She lives in Toronto, Ontario where she curates a reading series and teaches poetics privately and at Ryerson University.

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Hardcover

First published September 6, 2016

About the author

Hoa Nguyen [(Vĩnh Long, 1967)] was born in the Mekong Delta, grew up in the DC area and studied poetics in San Francisco. She is the author of 8 books and chapbooks, most recently Hecate Lochia (Hot Whiskey, 2009), Kiss a Bomb Tattoo (Effing Press, 2009) and Chinaberry (Fact Simile, 2010). Based in Austin, TX, Hoa curates a reading series and leads a creative writing workshop.

Reviews

[Jenna]

This, Nguyen's latest book, published just 2 months ago, is made up of cheeky, sometimes sharply satirical poems on themes of love and song and death, domesticity and war and racial hurt, anti-imperialist and pro-environmentalist politics. Nguyen pointedly critiques those historians who would glorify controversial figures like Andrew Jackson (“He was given the nickname ‘Indian Killer’ / He was put on the twenty-dollar bill”) while simultaneously erasing women such as the first-century Vietnamese military leaders the Trung Sisters.

“Hatshepsut:
—sported a kilt and
bare chest

—wore a bull’s tail
of gold & gems

—carried royal
crook and flail

—as a mummy she
is noted as ‘fat’” (from “Pharaoh Notes”)

There is a healthy amount of anger in these poems:

“I won’t I said again
lick the ass again
of the tyrant again" (from “Sunflower Guardians”)

But there is also plenty of humor, as in a reference that one poem makes to “flaccid Florida.”

Nguyen’s somewhat obscure, elliptical, discursive style at times hearkens to C.D. Wright’s, while at other times her irrepressible optimism is reminiscent of Ada Limon’s:

“Let’s be super stars          Let’s call each other ‘suckas’
Turn everything into writing           Lord of my Love
and eat new raw oysters with many condiments” (from “Blousy Guitar”)

Some quotes I liked include:

“Owl said….
Build your place in the trunk
the strongest place” (from “Owl”)


“Here is where the poet
ends a line with a preposition” (from “To Seek”)


“May my root feet be” (also from “To Seek”)


“You tell me that you love me
by circling the end rhymes” (from “Eat Violets”)

[Joe Milazzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the difficulty involved in erecting an aesthetic on a foundation of perfunctoriness. Maybe I'm just expecting too much from the resulting edifices. The best poems in this collection provide a glimpse -- and mysteriously so -- of all that's transpiring within their internal gaps (intervals?). I just wished that happened oftener than it did on this read (which, FWIW, still consisted of multiple readings).

[Erin O'Connell Aquino · Rating 2 out of 5]

meh

[hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 (suspect i may move this to 4 after rereading)

[Sophia L · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too esoteric and cryptic for me to relate to but I can’t punish someone with a low rating for thinking in ways that aren’t accessible to me!!!

[Gus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoa Nguyen went to the school I’m going to rn and she came back for a reading this past week and it was really wonderful. I wished some of the new poems she read were in this book just so I could have them to read again but I guess I’ll just have to buy her next book :) one of her new poems was called “Durian Sonnet” I think and it was breathtaking. The poem from which the book’s title is taken was a favorite. “Violet energy ingots Tenuous knowing moment” amazing

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm late to the Hoa Nguyen party, but I'm so glad to have discovered her work. I recently finished Red Juice and have kept it nearby to reread, here and there, which I almost never do with a book. This collection is just as full and punchy and verbally energized.

[Bmw800]

Like jazz, but I wasn't in the mood for jazz.

[Howell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Transfixing and personal. The poems demand to be savored like pieces of dark chocolate. The intimacy built throughout the collection is seductive. Unfortunately, this intimacy is jarringly interrupted at random by obtrusive shallow references to common Greek myths.

I'm over brown queer people writing about something as boring as Orpheus, Aphrodite, and other Greek heroes.

[naviya · Rating 4 out of 5]

- some love poems, some abt violence, imperialism and war
- I think in general, wave books’ titles are quite academic, and require multiple readings on my end to be understood completely
- some very lovely one-liners that I want to return to!!

[Michael Buebe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hell yes.

[Steph Sinclair · Rating 3 out of 5]

“How to be
moving like words & magic”

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not connect with this poetry

[Drew]

“I am too much / I am forever / too much”

[Sophia Ordonez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to give a poetry book a low rating. But personally it just was not for me, a bit too cryptic though there were some lines I really enjoyed. Maybe I’ll re read down the line

[Maya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nguyen nods to Aphrodite and Jack Spicer with her sonnets and is pensive toward the themes of seasons, death, and power. This collection starts muscular but becomes flabby. I love abstract poetry, however, the overall meaning was not clear to me. She does percolate the senses with her poem, Haunted Sonnet in the final stanza reading,
She said, “What do you know about Vietnam?”
Violet energy ingots Tenuous knowing moment

These lines express a personal history (of the speaker) of Vietnam, obliging it to deliver an evocative image. I’m not sure if this is where anyone curious about poetry should start but it does have its gems; be mindful that you may have fatigue after reading the book.