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Opening with forty-three new formally inventive poems and leading the reader back in time through selections from her ten previous volumes,
The Ghost Forest offers a contemplative and haunting narrative of a writer's artistic journey through craft and form while illuminating her personal history. Exploring the mysteries of science, nature and the experiences of contemporary womanhood, Hahn both reinvents classic Japanese forms and experiments with traditional Western ones. Braided into the poems and narrative thread, a series of photos transforms the new-and-selected into a hybrid autobiography. This arresting collection derives new beauty from long-gone remnants.
A Riotous DisorderShe mistakes one word for another-
Something her brain naturally concocts.
Her unruly grey matter and her heart
Mistake one word for an other-
Razor for river, cistern for sister.
Even cock for clock.
She mistakes one word for a mother-
A safe her brain naturally unlocks.-
About the author
A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Kimiko Hahn has published more than ten collections on subjects ranging from Asian American identity and zuihitsu to rarified fields of science. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN/Voelcker Award, Shelley Memorial Prize, and, most recently, the 2023 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement. She teaches in the MFA program for Creative Writing & Literary Translation at Queens College, City University of New York.
