COLLIER NOGUES
The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground
selected by Forrest Gander
Drunken Boat proudly announces the forthcoming publication of The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground by Collier Nogues. Congratulations to all of our finalists and contest entrants, some of whom will be featured in a forthcoming issue of the journal.
The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground will be published in print and e-book format in 2015 and distributed through Small Press Distribution, with a publication launch party to take place on April 9, 2015 at 7 pm at Honey (@ 205 East Hennepin Avenue) in Minneapolis during the Associated Writing Programs annual conference (where it will be offered for sale at table 1928). Collier Nogues will also be reading selections from her award-winning book during this multi-journal extravaganza at Honey. Drunken Boat invites you to join us in congratulating Collier at this time!
Acclaimed poet, translator, novelist, essayist, and contest judge, Forrest Gander said of The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground:
“...this is the best book of erasure poems since Srikanth Reddy’s Voyager. They are meant to include an ‘interactive online version’ of disappearing texts. They don’t necessarily read as erasures, but as lyric poems— even managing rhyme and epistolary. Like Reddy’s Voyager, these carry powerful political implications, regarding Japan and Japanese/US relations before, during, and after WWII. Terrific language: ‘All of us were in a position to suffer a/ temporary safety.’ Despite that they are derived from a dazzling array of incongruous texts, the manuscript manages to sustain a consistency of tone and form. Significantly, the technique— erasure— is well matched to a poetry of war, (re)constructing events through absences and aporias— the missing.”
More praise for The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground:
“Collier Nogues, who grew up on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, explores how war has shaped the island of her childhood. She gathers a wide range of historical, political, touristic, cultural, and literary texts about Okinawa, and then she "erasures" these documents to unearth new poems. Moreover, QR codes accompany each poem, transporting the reader to a companion website that features digital and visual renditions of the work. Taken together, these poems not only express a desire to erase violence, but they also attempt to map the topography of islands and nations, caves and embrasures, weapons and flags, grace and dread. Nogues is a brave poet who disassembles the official discourses of empire to articulate a dream for an island of peace.”
—Craig Santos Perez
Collier Nogues’s first book of poems, On the Other Side, Blue, was published by Four Way Books in 2011. Her writing has been supported by the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Fishtrap. She teaches creative writing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and co-edits poetry for Juked.
“Drunken Boat has promoted hybrid and online poetry since its beginnings as a journal,” Collier Nogues said. “I couldn’t be happier that The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground, with its dual print and interactive online poems, has found its home here. Drunken Boat’s commitment to publishing new media poems and other innovative writing makes more room in the world for the kind of writing I most love to read. It’s an honor to be part of the journal’s move forward as a press. Thank you, Forrest Gander, for choosing this book, and thank you, Drunken Boat!”
COLLIER NOGUES
The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground
selected by Forrest Gander
Drunken Boat proudly announces the forthcoming publication of The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground by Collier Nogues. Congratulations to all of our finalists and contest entrants, some of whom will be featured in a forthcoming issue of the journal.
The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground will be published in print and e-book format in 2015 and distributed through Small Press Distribution, with a publication launch party to take place on April 9, 2015 at 7 pm at Honey (@ 205 East Hennepin Avenue) in Minneapolis during the Associated Writing Programs annual conference (where it will be offered for sale at table 1928). Collier Nogues will also be reading selections from her award-winning book during this multi-journal extravaganza at Honey. Drunken Boat invites you to join us in congratulating Collier at this time!
Acclaimed poet, translator, novelist, essayist, and contest judge, Forrest Gander said of The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground:
“...this is the best book of erasure poems since Srikanth Reddy’s Voyager. They are meant to include an ‘interactive online version’ of disappearing texts. They don’t necessarily read as erasures, but as lyric poems— even managing rhyme and epistolary. Like Reddy’s Voyager, these carry powerful political implications, regarding Japan and Japanese/US relations before, during, and after WWII. Terrific language: ‘All of us were in a position to suffer a/ temporary safety.’ Despite that they are derived from a dazzling array of incongruous texts, the manuscript manages to sustain a consistency of tone and form. Significantly, the technique— erasure— is well matched to a poetry of war, (re)constructing events through absences and aporias— the missing.”
More praise for The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground:
“Collier Nogues, who grew up on a U.S. military base in Okinawa, explores how war has shaped the island of her childhood. She gathers a wide range of historical, political, touristic, cultural, and literary texts about Okinawa, and then she "erasures" these documents to unearth new poems. Moreover, QR codes accompany each poem, transporting the reader to a companion website that features digital and visual renditions of the work. Taken together, these poems not only express a desire to erase violence, but they also attempt to map the topography of islands and nations, caves and embrasures, weapons and flags, grace and dread. Nogues is a brave poet who disassembles the official discourses of empire to articulate a dream for an island of peace.”
—Craig Santos Perez
Collier Nogues’s first book of poems, On the Other Side, Blue, was published by Four Way Books in 2011. Her writing has been supported by the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, and Fishtrap. She teaches creative writing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and co-edits poetry for Juked.
“Drunken Boat has promoted hybrid and online poetry since its beginnings as a journal,” Collier Nogues said. “I couldn’t be happier that The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground, with its dual print and interactive online poems, has found its home here. Drunken Boat’s commitment to publishing new media poems and other innovative writing makes more room in the world for the kind of writing I most love to read. It’s an honor to be part of the journal’s move forward as a press. Thank you, Forrest Gander, for choosing this book, and thank you, Drunken Boat!”