{"id":16765,"date":"2021-03-30T09:14:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T14:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=16765"},"modified":"2021-04-01T06:30:41","modified_gmt":"2021-04-01T11:30:41","slug":"alien-miss-poems-by-carlina-duan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/16765","title":{"rendered":"Alien Miss: Poems by Carlina Duan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alien Miss: <\/em>Poems by Carlina Duan
\nAlien Miss<\/em> (University of Wisconsin Press, March 2021)
\nReviewed by Maria Isabelle Carlos<\/p>\n

Carlina Duan\u2019s second collection of poems, Alien Miss<\/em>, begins and ends with language in the mouth: tongue, teeth, and lips muscling around syllables and phonemes; power structures endured and enacted through speech. The eponymous first poem, a loose ghazal with couplets ending in variations of the word well <\/em>(welled, stairwell, swell, dwelled), opens the book with a \u201cpart-fictionalized, part-autobiographical figure composed of [Duan\u2019s] own reading, research, and personal experience\u201d (\u201cNotes,\u201d p. 93). \u201ceach syllable welled \/\/ into a small coin tucked into gums,\u201d the speaker says of Alien Miss, \u201cif she spoke the words right, \/ the bus deposited her body at the proper street. spoke the words well \/\/ and she\u2019d get the fattest fish at the supermarket\u2026\u201d (p. 3). The book unfolds around questions raised by this opening poem\u2014questions of race, power, and womanhood, of immigration and assimilation, of pledging and belonging, of the range of rage and softness that can inhabit a body.<\/p>\n

With each poem, the speaker draws power from Alien Miss, from ancestors named and unnamed, from kinships imagined and real, from a well of women swimming inside herself: \u201c[I] conjure back the language for who I am, what \/\/ I know, my lips rounding into diphthongs, \/ my tongue taming itself around a word\u2019s slick bead\u201d (\u201cSay A Little Prayer,\u201d p. 87). The final poem\u2019s couplet formation, imagery, and themes echo the opening title poem, creating a circular unity and cohesion across the collection; here, the poem\u2019s speaker brims with blood, gratitude, and a reclamation of voice made possible by lineage, inheritance, and deep, self-aware questioning. Refusing to yield to the old adage, History repeats itself<\/em>, refusing to be silenced by racist and sexist stereotypes and oppressive systems of power, the speaker transforms her rage into critical interrogation of the past, inviting redemptive possibility into her present and future.<\/p>\n

As spirited and sharp-tongued as her first collection, I Wore My Blackest Hair <\/em>(Little A, 2017), Duan\u2019s second book reaches new levels of clarity, rhetorical complexity, and sheer beauty, with her expanded and nuanced historical excavations, explorations of mythology, and experimental forms. Alien Miss<\/em> is divided into three distinct sections: the \u201cAlien Miss\u201d series, \u201cLineage Of,\u201d and \u201cInherit What You Can.\u201d Ghazals, sonnets, broken sestinas, and golden shovels all find homes here, alongside free-verse and long sequence poems that stretch down and across the book\u2019s broad pages. In Duan\u2019s work, silences speak volumes through gaping white spaces; humans transform into animals, the being-ness of plants are honored, and commonplace objects and gestures of kindness are lifted and celebrated\u2014Duan\u2019s world and the worlds of her speakers are rich and alive with the living and the dead, the small and the large. As with the crackling intensity of her language, the specificity of her imagery, animacy abounds.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The \u201cAlien Miss\u201d series is richly textured with intertextuality, borrowing language from letters and transcripts, legal and historical documents, words etched into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station barracks. \u201cthe past is in the future,\u201d asserts the speaker in \u201cAlien Miss Consults Her Past,\u201d a poem examining the language and ideas espoused by the United States\u2019 pledge of allegiance (p. 9). Indeed, within this section\u2014and throughout the book\u2014lurks fluidity between the ancestors and the living, between China and the U.S., between past, present, and future.<\/p>\n

The section culminates in a long sequence, reminiscent of Tarfia Faizullah\u2019s Seam\u2014<\/em>poems like \u201cThe Interviewer Acknowledges Desire\u201d or \u201cThe Interviewer Acknowledges Shame\u201d\u2014in the way Duan\u2019s speaker reverses the line of questioning onto herself: how have her origins, opportunities, and experiences in the midwest limited and expanded her understanding of Chinese-American history? Uncertainty and fortitude contradict themselves within the speaker and on the page:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>what gives me\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the right
\n<\/em>\u00a0 ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>to speak?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0child of the Midwest.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 born
\n<\/em>fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>to cornfields, suburban rabbits skittering
\n<\/em>fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>through summer lawns\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/em>(p. 15)<\/p>\n

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>for my body to become some body<\/em><\/p>\n

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>it had to understand<\/em><\/p>\n

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>\u2026 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 fffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>for my mouth to carry English \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 it needs to understand I am
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0beholden to other hands
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I don\u2019t belong to<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (p. 22-23)<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t help but think of the \u201cAlien Miss\u201d series as a crucial mapping of analytical and rhetorical thought: if we are to fully understand and uproot, and ultimately replace, archaic and ineffective structures of power, thinking, and living, we must train ourselves to look, and to look backward, forward, outward, and inward simultaneously\u2014perhaps inward most of all. We must learn to acknowledge the ways in which we are all endowed with blessings, beauties, and burdens.<\/p>\n

Alien Miss<\/em>\u2019 second section entitled \u201cLineage Of\u201d\u2014the poems at the heart of the book\u2014introduce the speaker\u2019s family. Here, gestures and patterns of love represent a collective family dynamic that challenges American ideals of extreme, boot-strap individualism. Through these relationships, Duan braids different types of lineages: roots of blood, of course, but beyond that as well, joy, resistance, pain, mythology, injustice. There is somber living as the speaker mourns her elders\u2019 declining health; peaceful, even joyful, dying as ghosts dance fluidly between worlds.<\/p>\n

Near the end of this section is \u201cI Make a New Song for Myself,\u201d another long sequence poem, and one of the book\u2019s most tender and powerful pieces. As the speaker and her father journey down I-90 toward her sister, he shares narratives, pieces of himself: \u201cwhen I came to this country, <\/em>my father begins, \/ but I know it is not his first beginning\u2026\u201d (p. 52). Again and again, Duan finds language for what is unsettled inside me, and inside other children of immigrants, I\u2019m sure\u2014indignation against the archetype of the \u201cgrateful immigrant,\u201d against the short-sighted notion that life in America is the only beginning that matters, and an instinctual yearning to know and to honor all the moments that constellate the lives that made our current living possible. In the poem\u2019s final section, the speaker and her father make a quick stop at a store on their way:<\/p>\n

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>full of white people pushing carts down aisles
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 of frozen casseroles, drumsticks, peas, & I
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0fidget with my mask, feeling outcast
\nffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>a<\/em>nd embarrassed. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>what?
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 my father says, then sticks out his hands, bends
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0an elbow, a leg, beginning to makeshift dance,
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 lift your head, he says<\/em>…
\nffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>what
\nfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>are you ashamed of? he asks<\/em>. you can choose
\nfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>to be small, or you can choose to be brave.<\/p>\n

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>(p. 54)<\/p>\n

Like many other Asian Americans, the COVID-19 pandemic rendered me lonely and afraid to leave my house, to walk my dog at crowded parks, to don my mask and purchase groceries. In the speaker\u2019s father I hear my own, and my mother, and my siblings, all reminding me to choose, to choose bravery, to live.<\/p>\n

The collection\u2019s final section, \u201cInherit What You Can,\u201d delves into language, linguistic power, and linguistic violence. It opens with a poem recounting an instance of Sinophobia: the speaker\u2019s pain, horror, disbelief, and fury are encapsulated by the underlined white space of the redacted ethnic slur. Duan\u2019s lyricism and use of repetition in \u201cDo You Have a Grammatically Correct Response to the Question?\u201d forces the reader to relive the moment over and over again\u2014not unlike the way those of us who have been unjustly wronged replay memories, interrogating every angle, questioning our own real-time reactions and emotive responses. After the word is hurled at her, standing at an intersection, the speaker wonders:<\/p>\n

fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>what was that boundary? where were my legs? why did
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 I stand there, without a word, holding the straw in my ice-
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 cubed drink as the liquid turned warm & illegible between
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 these jaws?
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (p. 63)<\/p>\n

Too often, we as a society dismiss the dynamic power of language, how words become seared in our brains and on our hearts, shaping our reality and sense of self\u2014but not this speaker, not this version of her:<\/p>\n

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>later, I fed the story back
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>to my mouth. later, the syntax
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>was rewound in a reel, set aside,
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>and I composed a new body
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>of roman letters\u2026
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>and raised them to touch
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>the edges of a face, a page,
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>to cure and hold and praise\u2026
\n<\/em>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (p. 65)<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I cannot conclude this review without an admission of bias: Carlina Duan is a graduate of the MFA program at Vanderbilt University, a former editor of Nashville Review<\/em>, and a sister to me, perhaps not in blood, but in language and in love. The first poem I heard Carlina read was \u201cAlien Miss,\u201d the opener of this collection, in our first workshop together in fall of 2018. That day, we were asked to present a poem that best represented our writing style, aesthetic, themes, and influences. It was there that I first heard about Carlina\u2019s poetic interests, about Angel Island Immigration Station and the Chinese Exclusion Act.<\/p>\n

No matter how hard I try, I can never be an impartial judge of Carlina\u2019s writing. But I can say with certainty, with the utmost confidence, respect, and admiration, that the quality of her work is undeniable. To me, she is and will continue to grow as a leader in the writing world of Asian American literature, of intersectional feminism, and of linguistic activism. I cannot think of Carlina\u2019s book without conjuring whole worlds: shimmering images and inspiring forms, language miraculous in sound and specificity, shiny-skinned eggplants, rattails jazzing in my periphery, faces, faces, faces, and all the people who make me possible, too. In the fresh bloody wake of Asian American women murdered in Atlanta GA, this book is a lamplight in a time of darkness, refusing to shy away from what angers and bruises us, shining a light on the best parts of ourselves, on the difficult but necessary pathways forward.<\/p>\n

In one of Alien Miss<\/em>\u2019 final poems, \u201cPossible\u201d\u2014a poem I turn to often, and most especially in times of need\u2014the speaker declares:<\/p>\n

ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>\u2026 \u2014& oh, I am possible again. I am
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>a fragrant, silly self. today I thank
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>the worms who eat the dirt who
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>break down the soil who make
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>the lilacs possible and young, forever
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>purpling, forever cradled in my palms as I cross
\n<\/em>ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff<\/span>Blakemore Avenue and it rains, rains rains\u2026
\n<\/em>(( \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/span>(p. 76)<\/p>\n

Alien Miss <\/em>is a book about history, but also its holes, slants, and shadows. It is a book about cages, and the enduring resilience made possible by those bars, the limitations held over and around us and those we hold within ourselves. It is a book about inheritance and what is lost, filtered across borders and through time. But above all else, it is a book about joy\u2014about insisting on love, on the expansive and minute acts of care and kindness that fill our daily lives, and on what is possible, despite.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Maria Isabelle Carlos <\/strong>is a writer from Missouri. Winner of the 2021 Tennessee Williams\/New Orleans Literary Festival Poetry Contest and the 2020 Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Passage North, Pleiades, Tin House <\/em>Online, Hyphen Magazine,<\/em> and elsewhere, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Best of the Net. After receiving her B.A. in English from UNC-Chapel Hill as the Thomas Wolfe Scholar, Maria bartended in New Orleans for a few years before attending the M.F.A. program at Vanderbilt University. She is the editor of Inch<\/em>, a quarterly series of micro-chapbooks from Bull City Press, and resides in Nashville, Tennessee. Read more at www.mariaisabellecarlos.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alien Miss: Poems by Carlina Duan Alien Miss (University of Wisconsin Press, March 2021) Reviewed by Maria Isabelle Carlos Carlina Duan\u2019s second collection of poems, Alien Miss, begins and ends with language in the mouth: tongue, teeth, and lips muscling around syllables and phonemes; power structures endured and enacted through speech. The eponymous first poem, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[67],"tags":[55],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-4mp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2211"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16765"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16836,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16765\/revisions\/16836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}