Dusk Aflame

Mong-Lan's new collection, Dusk Aflame: poems & art, is a bittersweet melange, a delirium of experiences and memories. Buenos Aires looms large with elegiac, nocturnal footsteps: on the edge of chaos and accidents waiting to happen. Buenos Aires, womb and capital of the tango, a melancholic music and sultry dance created by men and women who felt a need for the embrace. Death aspires to be a character here, and Dusk, too, female, animistic. An elegy for all that exists only in memory. On a lighter note, Mong-Lan continues with her cherished theme--love poems to nourishing delectables, like persimmon, rice, and sesame seeds. Dusk Aflame includes odes to the South, New Orleans, Houston, Galveston, and an island in Thailand. Jazz in poetry, in rhythm to the syncopations of life, to the tango, all comes together in a voice and vision that is uniquely Mong-Lan's.

Mong-Lan's virtuoso brush and ink paintings accompany her poems in a poetic dance of movement, providing a visual resonance and portent to her work.