And Then Entwine

Poetry. LGBT Studies. Asian American Studies. This powerful first collection by Thai American writer Jai Arun Ravine pulls itself and its readers across geographies, cultures, languages, identities, and genders in a performance of transformation. Ravine weaves Thai and English, the past and the present, the lyric and the narrative, into a hypnotizing poetic dance. Additionally, Ravine explores the documentation of identity and citizenship through re-articulating charts, pages of a child's composition book, and a birth certificate. This collection explores the seams of identity and origin and how they are painfully and beautifully entwined.