Winner of the Publishing Triangle Thom Gunn Award in Gay Poetry
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry
Finalist for the 2019 Minnesota Book Award in Poetry
Entropy, "Best of 2018: Best Poetry Books & Poetry Collections"
2019 Over the Rainbow Booklist Poetry title"I'm always struck by Hieu's balance of tenderness in his poems, the way that he holds a thin knife to both humor and trauma, turning one so easily into another."
–NBC News"Nguyen attempts a courageous exorcism of shame in his brilliant and disquieting second collection, exposing the baggage of living as a queer person of color in a white-supremacist, classist, heteronormative society. . . . Nguyen communicates with stunning clarity the ambivalence of shame, how it can commandeer one's life and become almost a comfort."
–Publisher's Weekly, boxed and starred review "Again and again, [Nguyen] slowly drops you then catches you, from one revelatory juxtaposition to the next." –The Adroit Journal
"[V]ery few could do what Nguyen has done."
–New York Times"Nguyen's voice feels simultaneously young and ageless, uncertain and wise. His poems are pitched somewhere between page and stage, as if said aloud right into your ear."
–NPR
"Nguyen, a queer Vietnamese-American, confronts whiteness, trauma, family, and nostalgia in poems that ache with loneliness, desire, and the giddy terrors of hoping for love."
–Publishers Weekly
"The worlds Nguyen summons and dismisses in these poems are mesmerizing, like the visions of a sorcerer, but not because they're magical–because they're real. All of them animated by a wild wit that feels like it could throw a car like a baseball. I've been waiting for this book, and if you've ever read one of these, you probably have been too–this is an essential debut.
Not Here is here."
–Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night
"
Not Here will transport you through the entire spectrum of human emotion–these poems will move you, reflect your loneliness, imbue you with hope, and fill you with nostalgia and joy."
–BuzzFeed
"[V]ery few could do what Nguyen has done."
–Stephanie Burt, New York Times"Nguyen is a writer whose talent, charisma, and intelligent work have him primed to become one of the most celebrated poets of our generation. . . . His work is painfully beautiful, at once fraught and hopeful, and always pulling at the axes of desire."
–Literary Hub
"Hieu Minh Nguyen's work is defiant in its tenderness."
–Poetry Foundation
"These dazzling poems by Vietnamese-American poet Hieu Minh Nguyen are exactly what we want to be reading next year, as they provocatively address the in-between spaces in life, those areas between love and longing, pain and pleasure, belonging and alienation. Nguyen's imagery is a sensory wonder, evocative of the depths of trauma and the dizzying heights of hopefulness and desire."
–Nylon "[Nguyen] illuminates how one can find a home inside self-hate, and communicates with stunning clarity the ambivalence of s
