Angel and Hannah: A Novel in Verse

(Paperback)

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Thesweeping, unforgettablestory of an interracial couple in 1990s New York City who are determined to protect their love against all odds-areimagining of Romeo and Juliet "Triumphant . . .sensuous, tender, and faceted like cut glass."-Cathy Park Hong, award-winning author ofMinor Feelings Hannah, a Korean American girl from Queens, New York, and Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn, fall in love in the spring of 1993 at a quinceanera- under a torn pink streamer loose as a tendril of hair-lush- his eyes. Darkluminous. Warm. A blush floods her. Hannah sucks in her breath, but can't pull back. Music fades. A hush - he's a young buck in the underbrush, still in a disco ball dance of shadow & light Their forbidden love instantly and wildly blooms along the Jackie Robinson Expressway. Told across the changing seasons,Angel & Hannah holds all of the tension and cadence of blank verse while adding dynamic and expressive language rooted in a long tradition of hip-hop and spoken word, creating new and magnetic forms. The poetry of Angel and Hannah's relationship is dynamic, arresting, observant, and magical, conveying the intimacies and sacrifices of love and family and the devastating realities of struggle and loss.

Reviews

Ishle Yi Park speaks to us from the mosttender, furious, and emotionally raw space in her breathtakingnovel in verse.Angel & Hannahmakes love feel revolutionary and desire feel like embattled truth.Reading it,I was often breathless, believing in the brilliance that is the bruised wonder of youth. Park brings us as close to a hearts fireas we are willing to go andleaves us soaring over the possibility of a new dream.Tina Chang, award-winning poet and author ofHybrida

I love the way that verse and form offer a type of restraint, inside of which the imagination of both writer and reader can flourish.Ishle Yi Park does a stunning job ofusing burstsof language and imagery to reconceptualize and reframe a familiar narrative.I loved sinking into the world of this book.I could feel the seasons changing.Hanif Abdurraqib, award-winning author ofA Fortune for Your DisasterandGo Ahead in the Rain

Angel & Hannahis a gorgeously written, unforgettable, sweet, and wild love story.In the heart of Queens and Brooklyn, we feel the electricity of a first love, race and culture, desire and trouble, as the young lovers come alive, stunned in sweetness.Park writes,Why are they in love, you ask Why does water love sky Moon chase sun Light reflect lightThe brilliant, cinematic verse and boundless heart let us breathe in the music of Angel and Hannahs grace and grief.I love and recommend this book with my whole heart.Lee Herrick, formerpoet laureate of Fresno, California, and author ofScar and Flower

Angel&Hannahis triumphant.Ishle Yi Parks narrative sequence of sonnets is sensuous, tender, and faceted like cut glass.I feel protective ofAngel and Hannah. Iwant their love to flourish like an empress tree growing in an abandoned lot in Queens.These fresh and absolutely necessary poems of a cross-racial romance need to be trumpeted from the rooftops,overtaking the canonized Romeos and Juliets and Heathcliffs and Catherines.I love this book.Cathy Park Hong, award-winning author ofMinor Feelings

Author Bio

Ishle Yi Park is the first woman to become poet laureate of Queens, New York. An award-winning poet, singer, hula dancer, surfer, certified yoga teacher, lomilomi practitioner, and mother, she's traveled the world reading and performing at universities and writing festivals. Park has organized benefits and shared the stage with other activists, including Sonia Sanchez and Angela Davis. She is of Korean ancestry, and both her daughters were born and are now being raised on the Hawai'ian islands.