FABLESQUE
TUPELO PRESS, 2020
Winner of Tupelo Press's Berkshire Prize, selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
“Anna Maria Hong is a genius poet of fairytale language and conventions. In Fablesque, Hong explores the grammar of horror and hunger, survival and abuse across the contorted historical, cultural, and familial terrains of the Korean diaspora. Fablesque speaks an unflinching language, the language of translation, the translation of unspeakable historical and personal tragedy.”
—Don Mee Choi
“Anna Maria Hong has built a cage, a bestiary, a chamber, a barn, a Fablesque book with breathtaking and very strange grace. These poems are haunted by fairy tales, awakened to history, apprehensive about gender, and most of all kind. Hong has a rhythmic and talented soul. This new collection cements her status as an important 21st-century feminist fabulist.”
—Kate Bernheimer
“It’s all here! Fabulous retelling! Hellenistic cracking! Animal hacking! Multiple histories! Novelty rimes! So much fun!”
—Marilyn Chin
“Anna Maria Hong cannot be fooled. Not by the legends of the Fathers, nor by the glare of the powerful. She sees through them, she points out the cracks in the airtight world of meanings, and declares that the order of things is nothing but rambling; simultaneously she takes a step back from her lucidity and considers us humans with the compassion with which wolves, dogs, and all the other little animals should be regarded.”
—Yuri Herrera