How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (out this October from Alice James Books) is a book of poems that explores the vulnerable and tangled ways in which we articulate and reckon with fear: fear of intergenerational trauma, of toxic masculinity, of silenced and hidden histories. At its core, the book is dedicated to Wong's grandparents who survived the Great Leap Forward. The book sings of rage, resilience, and community. Jane Wong and Leanne Dunic, poets/artists/friends, will read together!
“… Wong's powerful poems draw the reader's attention and insist the audience not look away.” -- Publishers Weekly
"What stories can food tell about us? About our histories, our wounds, our allegiances? What does it mean “to love a country that refuses / to look you in the eye[?]” These are questions asked within this collection, which interrogates what it means to grow up in abundance and, at times, excess, just a generation after your family endured through famine, in this case, the Great Leap Forward famine. A truly memorable, evocative collection.” -- Books are Magic, Most Anticipated Books of Fall/Winter 2021
“Jane Wong delivers a spellbinding knockout of a book. You will hunger for all the beautiful ways we can break bread together and with our ghosts. You will hunger for families both blood and chosen. These treasured poems are a most memorable exploration into what threads us together and what might break us. I promise you will nod your head yes, yes, YES—even when the speaker inquires at the end, ‘…are you hungry, awake, astonished enough?’” -- Aimee Nezhukumatathil
About the performers:
Jane Wong is the author of How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James, 2021) and Overpour (Action Books, 2016). Her poems and essays can be found in places such as Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, Best American Poetry 2015, American Poetry Review, POETRY, AGNI, Virginia Quarterly Review, McSweeney's, and Ecotone. A Kundiman fellow, she is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and fellowships and residencies from Harvard's Woodberry Poetry Room, the U.S. Fulbright Program, Artist Trust, the Fine Arts Work Center, Bread Loaf, Hedgebrook, Willapa Bay, the Jentel Foundation, Mineral School, and others. She is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Western Washington University. She lives on the unceded and stolen lands of the Lummi and Nooksack people.
Leanne Dunic transgresses genres and form to produce projects such as To Love the Coming End (Book*hug/ Chin Music Press 2017) and The Gift (Book*hug 2019). Her lyric memoir, One and Half of You, was published Spring 2021 by Talonbooks. Leanne is an adjunct professor at University of British Columbia, the fiction mentor at Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio, and the fiction editor at Tahoma Literary Review. She is the leader of the band The Deep Cove, and lives on the unceded and occupied traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh people.
For Covid safety, this event requires mask wearing and proof of full vaccination (please bring your vaccination card, thank you).
To register, visit Massy Art’s event page.