by Diana Khoi Nguyen

Welcome to SWWIM Every Day’s annual Miami Book Fair preview. Please subscribe to SWWIM Every Day to watch a daily video by a woman-identifying writer appearing at Miami Book Fair 2024. Enjoy this taste of poetry, sponsored by Miami Book Fair and SWWIM. We look forward to seeing you at the Fair!

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Appearance at Miami Book Fair 2024: Diana Khoi Nguyen, Sunday, 11/24/2024, 3 pm, Room 8303

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open the window to erase your ghost or maybe let one in

I unlatch like a cello case, air filling every dent in the velvet

a burr in the wool sock, that's what inspired velcro

why does this avocado rot before it could ripen

time and time again it is time we can't apprehend

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Poet and multimedia artist Diana Khoi Nguyen was born and raised in California. Her debut poetry collection Ghost Of was selected by Terrance Hayes for the Omnidawn Open Contest and was a finalist for the National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It received the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Colorado Book Award. A Kundiman fellow and member of the Vietnamese diasporic artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s), Nguyen’s other honors include awards from the 92Y “Discovery” Poetry Contest, Key West Literary Seminars, and Academy of American Poets. She teaches creative writing at Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

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"Cape Disappointment" appears in Root Fractures (Scribner 2024). Permission granted by the poet.

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