The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father
Winner of the 2017 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction

Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN USA Literary Center Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

In the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses. He keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes.

Following her award-winning memoir The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang now retells the life of her father, Bee Yang, the song poet—a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by America’s Secret War. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. The songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a St. Paul housing project and on the factory floor, until, with the death of Bee’s mother, they leave him for good. But before they do, Bee, with his poetry, has burnished a life of poverty for his children, polishing their grim reality so that they might shine.

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The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father
Winner of the 2017 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction

Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN USA Literary Center Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

In the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses. He keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes.

Following her award-winning memoir The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang now retells the life of her father, Bee Yang, the song poet—a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by America’s Secret War. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. The songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a St. Paul housing project and on the factory floor, until, with the death of Bee’s mother, they leave him for good. But before they do, Bee, with his poetry, has burnished a life of poverty for his children, polishing their grim reality so that they might shine.

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The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

by Kao Kalia Yang
The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

by Kao Kalia Yang

Paperback

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Overview

Winner of the 2017 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction

Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN USA Literary Center Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

In the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses. He keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes.

Following her award-winning memoir The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang now retells the life of her father, Bee Yang, the song poet—a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by America’s Secret War. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. The songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a St. Paul housing project and on the factory floor, until, with the death of Bee’s mother, they leave him for good. But before they do, Bee, with his poetry, has burnished a life of poverty for his children, polishing their grim reality so that they might shine.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781250131881
Publisher: Picador
Publication date: 05/09/2017
Pages: 288
Sales rank: 275,216
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Kao Kalia Yang is the author of The Song Poet, which received the 2017 Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA Literary Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her previous book, The Latehomecomer, also received the Minnesota Book Award. Her children's books include A Map into the World, which won the Minnesota Book Award, and The Shared Room. Yang, a regular contributor to NPR's On Being, lives in Saint Paul.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Album Notes

SIDE A: BIRTH OF A SONG POET—BEE YANG

Track 1: Birth of a Song Poet

Track 2: A Fatherless Boyhood

Track 3: Brothers and Sisters

Track 4: Love Song

Track 5: Cry of Machines

SIDE B: SONG FOR MY CHILDREN—KAO KALIA YANG

Track 6: Doctors and Lawyers

Track 7: The Son Must Rise

Track 8: Song of Separation

Track 9: Dreams and Nightmares

Track 10: Return to Laos (Duet)

Album Notes

Acknowledgments

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