Mai Der Vang (CRF 2017) was recently interviewed about her new poetry collection, Yellow Rain, for the Rumpus Room. The interview covers redacted documents, the intersection of visual and poetic forms, and the poems we write and rewrite that haunt us.
“Much of Vang’s poetry grapples with this dark history—a history whose details are often censored and left obscure by global powers. Her latest collection, Yellow Rain, out from Graywolf Press [September 21st], is the product of extensive archival research into the oft-disputed use of chemical weapons against the Hmong people. Yellow rain, for which the book was named, fell in droplets from the sky and dried into a powdery substance. Anyone who came into contact with it became severely ill and died horribly. What the substance was and who was deploying it were questions never definitively answered. Instead, the tensions of the Cold War and high-stakes disarmament negotiations engulfed the conversation, leaving the displaced Hmong with few answers and little hope for justice.”
Read the interview here.