The Tribute Horse - by Brandon Som (Paperback)

About the Book

Nightboat Poetry Prize Winning debut from Brandon Som

Book Synopsis

Brandon Som's The Tribute Horse unearths strange knowledge about the ways migration acts upon and is affected by a body's language, culture, perception and physical manifestations. Using found text, prose poem and Oulipian narrative, Som constructs a poetry deep in its theoretical rigor, ravishing in its sonic pleasure, and delicate in its formal constructions, drawing from various sources, including Chinese painting, Japanese photography, and narrative of immigrants through Angel Island, including that of his own grandfather.

Review Quotes

"Elegant and precise, delicate and wise, Brandon Som's poetry looks to the sound inscriptions of our histories, both personal and cultural, and asks how poets might make physical--and lasting--the nuances of our breath. This collection of iridescent cross-cultural meditations is wildly inventive and deeply consoling from its first syllable to its last."--David St. John

"Som is someone who wants to find a new solution for every poem. He really doesn't want to repeat himself with his projects. He is like C D Wright - and unlike Hayes, Kasischke and Powell - in that he is really in two minds about making prose sense."--Stephen Burt, Five Books

About the Author

BRANDON SOM is the author of the chapbook Babel's Moon. A PhD candidate at the University of Southern California, he lives in Los Angeles.