Not Here is a flight plan for escape and a map for navigating home; a queer Vietnamese American body in confrontation with whiteness, trauma, family, and nostalgia; and a big beating heart of a book. Nguyen's poems ache with loneliness and desire and the giddy terrors of allowing yourself to hope for love, and revel in moments of connection achieved.
"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
"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."
