Festival

by Mia You

“In Festival, Mia You showcases a sensory feast of consumer goods and detritus fluffed up with ambivalent merriment for latecomers to Empire’s party. Transnational in scope with axis points in the U.S, Korea, Netherlands, You’s work reveals the violent, colonial roots of both official celebrations and the family romance. Consisting of long narrative cycles and lyric punches, You’s poems are bodily and talky, brilliantly incisive, and alchemically transformative. You asks us to consider what makes up an event, a piece of time that is marked, contained, commemorated, and ritualized—as a form of mass dissociation. She then smashes the event (traumatic, difficult) and transforms it into something we can almost bear.”
—Vidhu Aggarwal

Paperback

Published May 2, 2025