Please join us for a book launch and artist talk by Truong Tran, poet and visual artist, moderated by Margaret Rhee. 

Tran's new book, How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir, was just published by City Lights Books. Truong will discuss his art practice, his new book, and issues around queerness and resistance through poetry and memoir.

About How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir: 

How to Exi(s)t: A Poet’s Memoir is an experiment in nonlinear autobiography by the author of the American Book Award-winning Book of the Other, Truong Tran. Beginning in the present–at a writing residency in the aftermath of this success–How to Exi(s)t moves back and forth in time, in bursts of brief poetic essays grouped by theme. The duality of the title thematizes a dilemma at the heart of the book: how does a poet separate himself from the academic career to which he’s devoted his professional life and what does being a teacher mean outside of it?

Unpeeling the layers between present and past, Tran proceeds in reverse as he explores crucial events and figures in his life, including the reaction to the publication of Book of the Other, the dynamics of whiteness and power framing his repeated rejection for a tenure track position, the profound effect of his dyslexia on his evolution as a writer and artist, the repercussions of being outed by a newspaper after winning an undergrad poetry prize, traumatic episodes growing up in the Vietnamese diaspora in San Jose, and complicated relationships with both his family and his chosen family. Attempting to fathom these experiences and connect them to his present self, Tran examines and reexamines key details rather than dispensing with them in neat anecdotes, reflecting the volatile process of imagination and memory.

Unsparing, even caustic in its instance on racism as a dominant note of American life, but marked by surprising tenderness and humor, How to Exi(s)t is a compelling portrayal of Tran’s pedagogical philosophy as well as an interrogation of a poetic language that conceals as much as it reveals.

"Vietnamese American poet and visual artist Tran (Book of the Other) examines racism, queer history, and his own life in this striking nonlinear account."

—Publishers Weekly

"Tran's prose speaks directly to the reader and offers opinions and perspectives that are superbly barbed and lushly poetic all at once. . . . A wise, reflective self-portrait shimmering with genuine emotion and bracing honesty."

—Kirkus Reviews