Don’t Hide the Madness by Nhã Thuyên

In Don’t Hide the Madness, Vietnamese poet Nhã Thuyên takes seriously the question of how to keep speaking, how to endure in language when it has been and continues to be drained of meaning. Here the language of madness, like the language of dream, offers a possibility of going on.

Nhã Thuyên secludedly anchors herself to Hà Nội, Việt Nam and totters between languages as a writer, translator, and editor. She has authored several books in Vietnamese and/or in English translations, including viết (writing), rìa vực (edge of the abyss), từ thở, những người lạ (words breathe, creatures of elsewhere), moon fevers (2019), bất\ \tuẫn: những hiện diện [tự-] vắng trong thơ Việt (un\ \martyred: [self-]vanishing presences in Vietnamese poetry). Her poetry and writing appear in numerous venues, including Asymptote, Cordite Poetry Review, The Margins, Words Without Borders, Jacket 2, Gulf Coast, The Kenyon Review, and other places. Among her accolades are the Rotterdam Poetry International and the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin fellowship. She has been unearthing her notebooks and rubbing her words, learning to quietly speak up with care. Her next book of poetry vị nước (taste of water) is lying there waiting to see the moon.