Synopses & Reviews
Engine Empire is a trilogy of lyric and narrative poems that evoke an array of genres and voices, from Western ballads to sonnets about industrialized China to fragmented lyric poems set in the future. Through three distinct yet interconnected sequences, Cathy Park Hong explores the collective consciousness of fictionalized boomtowns in order to explore the myth of prosperity. The first sequence, called "Ballad of Our Jim," draws inspiration from the Old West and follows a band of outlaw fortune seekers who travel to a California mining town during the 1800s. In the second sequence, "Shangdu, My Artful Boomtown!" a fictional industrialized boomtown draws its inspiration from present-day Shenzhen, China. The third and last section, "The World Cloud," is set in the far future and tracks how individual consciousness breaks up when everything--books, our private memories--becomes immediately accessible data. One of our most startlingly original poets, Hong draws together individual voices at odds with the world, voices that sing their wonder and terror.
Synopsis
This inventive trilogy of poems evokes an array of genres, from Western ballads to sonnets about industrialized China to fragmented lyrics set in a virtualized future. Cathy Park Hong, one of our most startlingly original poets, draws together individual voices at odds with the world--voices that sing their wonder and terror.
from "Market Forces Are Brighter than the Sun" My Aleph, My Grand Dame, My Turks
frozen in time! Haroon, Kadoori, Sassoon
With your bolts of canary silk sheared
and sold down Shangdu river alongside
a wedding of gamblers betting in a vintage sampan.
Barges of creaky banquet halls,
spit out your prawn tail in this ramekin!
Synopsis
"A brainy, glinting triptych . . . . Novelistic, meditative, offbeat, and soulful, Cathy Park Hong's poetry is many fathoms deep." --David Mitchell
Synopsis
"A brainy, glinting triptych . . . . Novelistic, meditative, offbeat, and soulful, Cathy Park Hong's poetry is many fathoms deep." --David Mitchell
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About the Author
Cathy Park Hong is the author of Translating Mo'um and Dance Dance Revolution and has won a Pushcart Prize and the Barnard Women Poets Prize. She lives in New York and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.