Mai Der Vang (CRF 2017) is the author of Afterland (Graywolf Press, 2017), winner of the 2016 Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award in Poetry, and a finalist for the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.

In an interview with Mai Der Vang about her book, Vang discusses how the book is a cumulation of ideas of hers, some which relate to shamanism, that guides the reader through a process of “returning to one’s ancestors” with loosely cyclical, non-restrictive timelines in her poems. Vang’s fluidity of time, love, trauma and destruction offer a dynamic and emotional experience. From Vang, “We are not made of a singular thing or identity or history or culture – it’s absolutely okay to be and accept that we are of many.”

Read the full interview here.