All posts filed under: Literature and Writing

Review: How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

Published by littlelaosontheprairie

Review by Soudary Kittivong-Greenbaum This isn’t for you This is for the lady in the back The kid that’s late to class The dad that’s invisible, dreams cast aside The lost-ambition Grandma, no-purpose Aunty And it’s all for you too. Soudary Kittivong-Greenbaum Written through the eyes of a child (more than once), a grown woman longing for her grown child, a 20-something single factory worker, a woman in her 70s, a husband completely in denial of his wife’s escapades, a teen daughter of a farmworker, each character in Souvankham Thammavongsa’s new title, How to Pronounce Knife is a glimpse into the lives of a Lao refugee or immigrant, literally and figuratively trying to make it in the world. They are in the midst, often of an identity juncture, trying fit in. They are living the mundane, the everyday. But inside their minds, and their hearts, they are trying to find meaning, to figure a place in their world. What it does differently than other works of art centered on the refugee and Lao refugee character …

Southeast Asian American Verse in the Time of Coronavirus

Published by Staff

Looking for something to read because you find yourself suddenly with a lot of free time but no place to socialize? This year is the 45th anniversary of the Southeast Asian diaspora, especially for the Lao and Hmong community. Because April is National Poetry Month, Little Laos on the Prairie is providing a reading list of poetry books that are still relatively easy to order from Southeast Asian poets. We recommend ordering directly from their publishers to support them, but you can also find many at major new and used bookselling websites. Lao Poets Light by Souvankham Thammavongsa, Pedlar Press, 2013. This collection won the Trillium Award in Canada for the best book of the year, examining life in Ontario. Light is among the one of the author’s books that are easier to find hers compared to her classics Small Arguments and Found, the latter of which was inspired by a scrapbook she discovered in the trash her father had kept while in the Thai refugee camps. Found later inspired a short film. Her latest collection, Cluster tackles everything from war to …