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# Two Poems by Hoa Nguyen
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/two-poems-by-hoa-nguyen/
- Published: 2016-07-27T11:00:16.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:42:08.000Z
- Description: Our new poetry editor, Wendy Xu, has selected two poems by Hoa Nguyen for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.
- Author: Wendy Xu
- Tags: Poetry, Hyperallergic Poetry, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:17 (2016, 2017, part 1)

*Our* [*new poetry editor, Wendy Xu*](https://hyperallergic.com/welcome-wendy-xu-hyperallergics-new-poetry-editor-as-joe-pan-shifts-to-fiction/)*, has selected two poems by Hoa Nguyen for her monthly series that brings original poetry to the screens of Hyperallergic readers.*

*\* \* \**

![Sadie Benning, "Sunset" (2015), aqua resin, wood, casein, and acrylic gouache, 38 x 54 inches](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2016/07/sb588-1.jpg)

Sadie Benning, “Sunset” (2015), aqua resin, wood, casein, and acrylic gouache, 38 x 54 inches (image courtesy the artist and Callicoon Fine Arts, New York, photo by Chris Austin)

## O PROSPERITY

Follow the chocolate from  
“middle man” jobber to

plate

The workers in the movie  
casually called “coolie”

by actress Catherine Deneuve

It was always you wasn’t it,  
Empire

who historically plundered  
and vampired

and then create the elaborate dessert  
for you to name

and eat

## ODE TO SECOND CHANCES (LATE FEBRUARY)

Gumdrop of my heart  
The sun comes back

a sweet sour mound  
around one month after

simmering white winter

Fleur de lieu and already  
swimming as a pool swims

minutes more of long light  
wanting a pool of words

Light drives through one western-  
facing window and if

your holding onto me  
is a Belt of Venus purpled

mostly 3 bouquets of cut tulips

Neighbor’s tree stump exposed

and exposes rotten in a heart  
shape!Shimmeringly

\* \* \*

Born in the Mekong Delta and raised in the Washington, DC, area, Hoa Nguyen studied Poetics at New College of California in San Francisco. Author of four full-length books of poetry including [*As Long As Trees Last*](mailto:http://www.wavepoetry.com/products/as-long-as-trees-last)and [*Red Juice, Poems 1998–2008*](http://www.wavepoetry.com/products/red-juice-poems-1998-2008?ref=hyperallergic.com). Her new book, [*Violet Energy Ingots*](http://www.wavepoetry.com/products/violet-energy-ingots?ref=hyperallergic.com), was selected by Publishers Weekly as one of the top ten poetry books published in the fall of 2016\. Nguyen teaches at Ryerson University’s Chang School, for Miami University’s low-residency MFA program, for the Milton Avery School for Fine Arts at Bard College, and in a long-running, private poetics workshop.

*Readers are encouraged to submit 3–5 poems as a PDF to Wendy Xu for consideration at* [*poetry@hyperallergic.com*](mailto:poetry@hyperallergic.com)*.*