Invisible Gifts: Poems

(Paperback)

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Description

In her first full-length collection of poems, Win depicts a colorful world imbued with unexpected paradoxes: nature is both comforting and savagely unnerving; love is permanent and fleeting; the accuracy and flaws of memory abound. Her experiences with illness and recovery intertwine with her identity as a Burmese American daughter of immigrant doctors, flowing in poems like "Hands": My father's hands, frail birds, shaking wings. / In Burmese, "win" means bright. / Hands that stitched skin together and brought back life. Win's unique perspective and artful language offer readers insight into how the heart can bend and mend without breaking.

Author Bio

Maw Shein Win is a Burmese American poet, editor, and educator who lives and works in the Bay Area. Her writing has appeared in many journals and several anthologies, including Cimarron Review, Fanzine, Eleven Eleven, The Fabulist, and Cross-Strokes: Poetry Between Los Angeles and San Francisco. She was an artist-in-residence at Headlands Center for the Arts, and is a member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. She often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers. Win's poetry is featured in artist Megan Wilson's mural, Flower Interruption, a featured artwork in the special exhibition Flower Power at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum. She is the first Poet Laureate of El Cerrito.