In 2023, the Academy of American Poets invited twelve poets to each curate a month of poems. In this short Q&A, Hieu Minh Nguyen discusses his curatorial approach and his own creative work.
Poets.org: Welcome to the Guest Editor Q&A, hosted by the Academy of American Poets. I’m Mary Sutton, senior content editor at the Academy, and I’m here today with our Guest Editor for May, Hieu Minh Nguyen. Hieu is the author of Not Here and This Way To The Sugar. Hieu, welcome and thank you for joining me.
Hieu Minh Nguyen: Thank you so much, Mary, for having me.
Poets.org: It’s an honor. Let’s jump right in. How did you approach curating Poem-a-Day?
Nguyen: Thank you for asking. Well, there was this time in my life when I was completely nocturnal, sleeping away most of the day and waking up just in time to go to the post office or the bank or have my first coffee as I watched the office buildings empty into rush hour. There was [sic] so many things I loved about being awake when the rest of the city was asleep, but it was also very lonely, and it was really easy to feel like you weren’t a participant in the world.
When I got the invitation to curate for Poem-a-Day, I thought of that time, and I thought about all the mornings that the Poem-a-Day email would arrive in my inbox as an indicator that it was time to go to sleep. And I thought about all the times I was certain, or I believed that I was the first person to read the poem of the day, and I thought of these poems as companions, as my last conversation before bed. And so for my curation, I sought out poems that, in their own way, made me feel less lonely.
Poets.org: Very interesting. Now, if you could direct our readers to one poem on Poets.org, or it could be more than one poem on Poets.org that you haven’t curated, what would it be and why?
Nguyen: Immediately I think of Matthew Olzmann’s poem, “Letter Beginning With Two Lines by Czesław Miłosz,” which is a poem I love and a poem I think about often, or I should say a poem I am forced to think about too often, every few weeks it seems, every time a gunman wanders into a school or campus or [I] look around my own classroom and take an inventory of the furniture I could use to blockade a door. Or a news article will come out. I think about that poem every time I have to take another mandated safety training. Or sometimes when I walk into a movie or a concert or a drag show, and the paranoia of a mass shooting will set in, and I think of that poem. And then I think that that fear changes into grief or exhaustion while I scan the crowd looking for the people I love. Yeah, I think about that poem often, too often.
Poets.org: Yeah, that poem by Olzmann, which is also accompanied by a recorded reading, was published in Poem-a-Day in January 2016. Back in September, I had a conversation with our Guest Editor for that month, Cynthia Hogue, about how we can become inured and even apathetic in response to events like mass shootings. Poems like Olzmann’s, I think remind us of how important it is to be engaged, even if that engagement takes us to ugly, unpleasant places within ourselves.
What I especially appreciate about your work, and maybe some of our other readers and listeners do as well, and this goes back to your earlier comment about loneliness… What I really appreciate about your work, is your deep engagement with melancholy. Can you tell us a bit more about that theme in your work, and maybe writers who have influenced your exploration of that subject?
Nguyen: Ooh, this is a great question. Melancholy. Yeah, I think I’ve always been, even as a child... Adults in school used to use that word to describe me, and I didn’t always know what it meant; and not because I was a sad child, but I think I would go internal a lot, and why I look to poems that help me explore the internal world, and help me understand maybe the questions I might have about myself and about the world around me. And so I use poems as a tool of inquiry, and I think some of the poets that really helped and kind of [have] been guides for me, I think of [Constantine P.] Cavafy being one. I think of, oh my God, I love when poets are asked to name other poets and all the names just rush into your mind. I think of Paul Tran who helps me be brave enough to confront myself. So many names… Cameron Awkward-Rich is another poet who…yeah. I feel like I learned so much from poems about myself and learn a new language for loneliness.
Poets.org: Yeah, I certainly understand, and of course Paul Tran is another poet who’s appeared in Poem-a-Day, as has Cameron Awkward-Rich. And this is not an easy subject to broach, melancholy.
Nguyen: No.
Poets.org: Especially because it is so connected to the grief we’ve been collectively experiencing for the past two years. I mean, it’s possible to look at melancholy and grief differently. There’s the sense that grief is a passing feeling, whereas melancholy is this, almost this part of one one’s personality. Or not of your personality, but... Or maybe an intrinsic part of a particular work. But I did notice this theme of melancholy in your work, not as a negative thing. And I hope that wasn’t the implication.
Nguyen: No, I don’t think that negatively at all.
Poets.org: Right. But as something that is a facet of life and of being. And again, to go back to the point you were making about loneliness, and also the point that I was making about not becoming apathetic and being willing to look at these parts of ourselves that might not be so pleasant, which in our American culture is not something that we do very often. We don’t like to explore those aspects of our being. But your work, I think, does explore it, and I really appreciate that aspect of it.
Nguyen: Oh, thank you so much.
Poets.org: So who are you reading right now?
Nguyen: Oh, I’m reading a lot of different things. So I’m currently away from home, traveling on this last-minute trip. And you do that thing where you’re packing, and you just grab a bunch of random books. And so I have with me a backpack full of books, and they’ve kind of become my companions for this trip.
I’m reading Dyscalculia by Camonghne Felix, and I might be too in it to make any coherent thoughts out of my awe. But Camonghne is really opening every door, window, cabinet, drawer in my mind. I went to the bookstore, when I went to get the book, I went to the bookstore and I was looking for Dyscalculia, because I’d just come out and I was searching through the poetry section because I know Camonghne, I’ve known Camonghne since we were teenage poets and have always known Camonghne’s poetry. And so I was looking through the poetry section and couldn’t find it. And then the bookseller told me that it was actually in the nonfiction section. And discovering that the book is a memoir, but also a poetry collection, a meditation, like a lyric negotiation. It really is showing me all the things that poetry is capable of. And that poetry isn’t just contained to a genre, but can be a tool to help you tell many different stories.
Poets.org: I’m so glad that I’m not the only person with the problem of packing too many books…
Nguyen: Listen...
Poets.org: ...when I go on trips. Hearing that from you makes me feel a lot better about always being overweight when I have a bag.
Nguyen: Honestly, it’s a problem. And then your back hurts.
Poets.org: Indeed. Well, in your case, because you’re using a backpack. For the edification of our readers and listeners, Camonghne Felix has had work published in Poem-a-Day, in January 2023 and July 2021. So Hieu, what are you currently working on now, in your writing, teaching, and publishing life?
Nguyen: Oh, my God. This is a question that I often try to avoid, but right now, so in my teaching life, I’m working as a Jones Lecturer at Stanford, teaching poetry and nonfiction. In my writing life, I am currently working on my, hopefully will be my third collection of poetry. Yeah, I feel like I have this curse that anytime I try to say what the third collection might be about, or meditating on, as soon as I tell someone it changes. And so this collection has made me a liar many times.
Poets.org: Maybe you’re just a little superstitious, and I don’t think you’re the only one with that superstition. Well, in whatever case, we’re definitely looking forward to that third collection. I personally am very much looking forward to that third collection. Can’t wait to hear more from you.
Nguyen: Thank you so much.
Poets.org: Thank you so much for joining me. This was fantastic.