Four Letter Words

Poetry. Asian American Studies. “The word ‘in’ appears in this book 186 times. Around this word, as if on its own defiant, self-defining margin, exists a kindred lexicon: intention, indignation, innocence, intact, incomplete, inclusion, invite, incite. Truong Tran, a poet of probing inventiveness, plumbs the possibilities of confessional poetry as no one else can. In this book, he shows identity’s ‘cruel complexity melting on my tongue.’ In his own, inimitable tongue he speaks his grief, outrage, and faithfulness. Troung takes the reader on a journey to the interior: in response, in exile, in the word”–Elizabeth Robinson. Truong Tran is the author of WITHIN THE MARGIN, DUST & CONSCIENCE, and PLACING THE ACCENTS.