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Not Here
Not Here is a flight plan for escape and a map for navigating home; a queer Vietnamese American body in confrontation with whiteness, trauma, family, and nostalgia; and a big beating heart of a book. Nguyen’s poems ache with loneliness and desire and the giddy terrors of allowing yourself to hope for love, and revel in moments of connection achieved.
76 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2018
40 people are currently reading
4459 people want to read
About the author
Hieu Minh Nguyen
15 books127 followersMeet Hieu Minh Nguyen, a young individual with a deep fascination for the mystical and mysterious world of occultism. Growing up in a family that had a connection to the occult, Hieu started delving into the arts of Zi Wei Dou Shu and Feng Shui at the tender age of 19. As the years passed, at the age of 22, Hieu's exploration expanded to embrace other aspects of the occult realm, including the law of attraction, ho'oponopono, advanced meditation techniques, past life regression, and more.
An extraordinary turning point occurred in 2022 when the author came to realize that the heart of all occult knowledge didn't solely rest within a single discipline. Instead, it encompassed the entire world – both scientific and mystical – with the human mind at its core. This revelation sparked a transformative change in the way Hieu approached the mystical and metaphysical world.
An extraordinary turning point occurred in 2022 when the author came to realize that the heart of all occult knowledge didn't solely rest within a single discipline. Instead, it encompassed the entire world – both scientific and mystical – with the human mind at its core. This revelation sparked a transformative change in the way Hieu approached the mystical and metaphysical world.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 209 reviews
April 12, 2018
Outstanding collection of poetry about queerness, boyhood, sons and their mothers, what we carry when who we are is not enough for the people who should love us best, desire and the thrall of want. Cockfight is a real stand out but all the poems offer something beautiful, razor sharp, intelligent, interesting, memorable.
May 17, 2018
3.5 stars
A vulnerable, moving poetry collection written by queer Vietnamese American author Hieu Minh Nguyen. As a queer Vietnamese American myself, I related to so much of the content here, including how Nguyen describes confrontations with whiteness and racism, difficult and nuanced relationships with family, and general moments of sadness and connection. Though his words felt relatable to me, he has a distinct voice all of his own. Certain lines took my breath away, like "I'm told to be open to the possibility of not being a monster," as well as the idea of "enduring the labor of forgetting" in regard to not taking offense at a racist joke. I particularly appreciated his honesty in sharing his trauma. Nguyen has such an admirable, open heart and I am curious to read what he writes next. Would recommend to poetry fans and those invested in reading diverse voices.
(As you may discern, my rating stems from my own lack of ability to *get* poetry, as some of this collection did not make sense to me or did not fully resonate, which is most likely on me.)
A vulnerable, moving poetry collection written by queer Vietnamese American author Hieu Minh Nguyen. As a queer Vietnamese American myself, I related to so much of the content here, including how Nguyen describes confrontations with whiteness and racism, difficult and nuanced relationships with family, and general moments of sadness and connection. Though his words felt relatable to me, he has a distinct voice all of his own. Certain lines took my breath away, like "I'm told to be open to the possibility of not being a monster," as well as the idea of "enduring the labor of forgetting" in regard to not taking offense at a racist joke. I particularly appreciated his honesty in sharing his trauma. Nguyen has such an admirable, open heart and I am curious to read what he writes next. Would recommend to poetry fans and those invested in reading diverse voices.
(As you may discern, my rating stems from my own lack of ability to *get* poetry, as some of this collection did not make sense to me or did not fully resonate, which is most likely on me.)
November 15, 2023
some of these poems did nothing for me, and then some took me by the throat and slammed me into a wall:
—
—
If you cut me open, if you dissect me, you will pull from me: / a pair of handprints, a nine-year-old boy, fossilized.
—
I describe your funeral like a party you forgot to attend. It wasn’t the same without you.
—
but instead, the water runs clear & the minnows swim, bright, beneath it, & some big god in my big head tells me, my son, you are not needed & the voice is soft & cruel & all my big loves are laughing & happy & today my body does not fit between this joy & today everything is indescribably beautiful & it must be wrong to want anything else because even the blaring sounds of the city are calm & the sun laughs, stay, not today, not today.
Read
August 24, 2018This was recommended by a fellow poet and did not disappoint in that it had some beautiful lines along the way. Nguyen tackles issues surrounding his coming-of-age as a gay Vietnamese-American, so the extremely personal topics touch on racism, homophobia, and his own inner turmoil growing up.
Some poems cross into TMI territory, but I most appreciated the poems concerning his mother and grandmother, father and uncles--that is, the way coming out can create anger, fear, hysteria, and hate within a family itself. For LGBQT people, acceptance, if it arrives at all, is slow in arriving.
Overall, a classic example of the new wave in poetry: very personal, first-person POV poems, often highlighting minority experience in an entrenched "majority" world.
Some poems cross into TMI territory, but I most appreciated the poems concerning his mother and grandmother, father and uncles--that is, the way coming out can create anger, fear, hysteria, and hate within a family itself. For LGBQT people, acceptance, if it arrives at all, is slow in arriving.
Overall, a classic example of the new wave in poetry: very personal, first-person POV poems, often highlighting minority experience in an entrenched "majority" world.
June 11, 2018
went into this only knowing that hieu went to high school with one of my best friends and that last week I definitely reached out to him on twitter and said he could take a picture of my butt for unstated artistic purposes and then I picked up his book at the library and all I could think about was Minneapolis and how much I long for it and how beholden I am to the entire oeuvre of this poet community that I am trying to offer up my own literal ass as a boon to mark my appreciation
June 13, 2018
4.5 stars
Stellar collection. Clear-eyed observations on the bond between mother and son, mental health, and race.
"I'm trying to understand that memory / is not a technology, a full charge / will get you nowhere, if you're stuck / tracing the perimeters of your dull nostalgia / for an exit." -from "Punish"
"Too often, I don't tell people / (people I love) I am sad. I don't think that's some- / thing they would want to hear. Because they love me. / Because I don't want them to feel like the currency of / their tenderness isn't enough when it has been & will / be again." -from "Notes of Staying"
Standout poems for me were "Still, Somehow," "Elegy for the First," "Attending the Party," "Note," and "Notes on Staying."
A good read for fans of Saeed Jones, Ocean Vuong, and Richard Siken.
Stellar collection. Clear-eyed observations on the bond between mother and son, mental health, and race.
"I'm trying to understand that memory / is not a technology, a full charge / will get you nowhere, if you're stuck / tracing the perimeters of your dull nostalgia / for an exit." -from "Punish"
"Too often, I don't tell people / (people I love) I am sad. I don't think that's some- / thing they would want to hear. Because they love me. / Because I don't want them to feel like the currency of / their tenderness isn't enough when it has been & will / be again." -from "Notes of Staying"
Standout poems for me were "Still, Somehow," "Elegy for the First," "Attending the Party," "Note," and "Notes on Staying."
A good read for fans of Saeed Jones, Ocean Vuong, and Richard Siken.
August 5, 2018
Bless language
its impossible walls
its flexible agony
a thin line
I keep tripping over
Hieu Minh Nguyen faces his issues head on with these poems, discussing molestation, queerness, racial identity, and his complicated relationship with his mother. The collection picks up speed in the second half, where nearly every poem made me pause, ponder, and reread. My favorites were, in order of appearance:
-"Attending the Party"
-"Punish"
-"White Boy Time Machine: Override"
-"Changeling"
-"Commute"
-"Heavy"
-"Notes on Staying"
May 4, 2018
Many many content warnings that I definitely wish I'd been given before I read this - abuse, child abuse, parental abuse, fatphobia ... this poetry is incredibly and speaks to me more than a lot of poetry has in a while. I'm glad to have read it. It is definitely achingly sad.
August 24, 2018
Absolutely lovely, heartbreaking poems. I found the epigraph for my current novel:
Let me be clear: any love I find will be treason.Can't remember which friend recommended this, but THANK YOU!
April 17, 2018
This is not a collection that is easily digestible. It sits with you. Sits heavy on your mind and tongue. Loops circles in your brain as you try to unthink it. It made me think about sex and who we are to each other when we have it.
It’s subject is trauma - sexual, familial, historical. The site of the trauma is the poet’s voice & the poet’s body. The poems point backwards and forwards as the voice uses sexual encounters to renact the various traumas again and again. All the while the voice strives to achieve some sense of self-love as it tries to recognizes itself not as a monster, not as a location on which to burn itself, but as something worth loving. It touches on weight and mothers, how both can be overbearing and create definitions of self you fight against.
Emotionally it is a rough read. It is well written. The poems can call up both stillness and urgency. The use of space on the page can create a startling power at times. Nguyen has an obvious facility for language and often achieves moments of grace.
Noteworthy poems include - “Heavy,” “Hosting,” “Note,” “Cockfight,” “Mercy,” & “Nguyen.” The series “Notes on Staying” was also excellent.
It’s subject is trauma - sexual, familial, historical. The site of the trauma is the poet’s voice & the poet’s body. The poems point backwards and forwards as the voice uses sexual encounters to renact the various traumas again and again. All the while the voice strives to achieve some sense of self-love as it tries to recognizes itself not as a monster, not as a location on which to burn itself, but as something worth loving. It touches on weight and mothers, how both can be overbearing and create definitions of self you fight against.
Emotionally it is a rough read. It is well written. The poems can call up both stillness and urgency. The use of space on the page can create a startling power at times. Nguyen has an obvious facility for language and often achieves moments of grace.
Noteworthy poems include - “Heavy,” “Hosting,” “Note,” “Cockfight,” “Mercy,” & “Nguyen.” The series “Notes on Staying” was also excellent.
May 4, 2019
Didn't like this one as much as This Way to the Sugar, but still a solid collection of poems here. Favorites include: Lesson; Dear X; Attending the Party; The Study; Apology, Sort Of; Again, Let Me Explain Again.
April 18, 2018
This is one of the best books of poetry I've ever read. Poignant, beautiful, startling, captivating.
August 23, 2018
This is my favorite book of poetry that I've read this year.
June 8, 2021
"No matter where we go, there's a history
of white men describing a landscape
so they can claim it. I look out the window
& I don't see a sunset, I see a man's
pink tongue razing the horizon.
I once heard a man describe the village
in Vietnam where my family comes from.
It was beautiful
a poem I would gift my mother
but somewhere in the pastoral I am reminded
a child (recently) was blown apart
after stepping on a mine, a bulb, I guess
blooming forty years later—
maybe it was how the poet said dirt
or maybe it was how he used fire
to describe the trees."
// White Boy Time Machine: Override
Two suitable poet comparisons to think of with Hieu Minh Nguyen, based on vibes as well as recurring themes, would be Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong. Considering I love them both, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I loved Nguyen as well. The poems in this collection straddle the line between tenderness and brutality, studded with striking images that carve out new idioms for expressing longing and love. As a gay Vietnamese-American man, his tussle with his identity is complicated by his love for his mother, at odds with his queerness. The complex relationship is highlighted all over.
Family, in a larger sense, figures a lot too, in terms of painful memories & difficult interactions. He confronts whiteness, its looming specter, particularly in White Boy Time Machine, a series of great poems. His mother, weirdly enough, is more accepting of a white partner, a man to keep him safe. Love, how it's sullied and purified, unrequited and gratified, lies at the center, feeding directly into queer encounters, the sense of shame they bring, struggles with his body & homophobia. A really moving collection, painful, joyful, cutting to the core.
(I received a physical review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
of white men describing a landscape
so they can claim it. I look out the window
& I don't see a sunset, I see a man's
pink tongue razing the horizon.
I once heard a man describe the village
in Vietnam where my family comes from.
It was beautiful
a poem I would gift my mother
but somewhere in the pastoral I am reminded
a child (recently) was blown apart
after stepping on a mine, a bulb, I guess
blooming forty years later—
maybe it was how the poet said dirt
or maybe it was how he used fire
to describe the trees."
// White Boy Time Machine: Override
Two suitable poet comparisons to think of with Hieu Minh Nguyen, based on vibes as well as recurring themes, would be Danez Smith and Ocean Vuong. Considering I love them both, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I loved Nguyen as well. The poems in this collection straddle the line between tenderness and brutality, studded with striking images that carve out new idioms for expressing longing and love. As a gay Vietnamese-American man, his tussle with his identity is complicated by his love for his mother, at odds with his queerness. The complex relationship is highlighted all over.
Family, in a larger sense, figures a lot too, in terms of painful memories & difficult interactions. He confronts whiteness, its looming specter, particularly in White Boy Time Machine, a series of great poems. His mother, weirdly enough, is more accepting of a white partner, a man to keep him safe. Love, how it's sullied and purified, unrequited and gratified, lies at the center, feeding directly into queer encounters, the sense of shame they bring, struggles with his body & homophobia. A really moving collection, painful, joyful, cutting to the core.
(I received a physical review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)
January 28, 2025
Nguyen is a funny mf. he is really good at walking the line at not being too self-deprecating but expressing traumas in a humorous light. there are some SCATHING truths about dating white people as an asian person, which was kind of perfect because I have also been reflecting a lot on my dating history. im a sucker for poems about tenuous relationships with mothers and about bodiesssss.
*side note: this is my first book i have selected without a recommendation from someone else, goodreads, or other social media! i was just walking through durham's library and something about the cover and the first poem really drew me to pick it up. excited to continue exploring how i can be more intentional with the media + books i consume.
fav poems:
- White Boy Time Machine: Instruction Manual
- Again, Let me Tell You What I know about Trust
- Attending the Party
- Dear X
- #2
- Punish
- Mercy
- Hosting
- Ode to the Pubic Hair Stuck in my Throat
- Note
- Heavy
- Notes on Staying
*side note: this is my first book i have selected without a recommendation from someone else, goodreads, or other social media! i was just walking through durham's library and something about the cover and the first poem really drew me to pick it up. excited to continue exploring how i can be more intentional with the media + books i consume.
fav poems:
- White Boy Time Machine: Instruction Manual
- Again, Let me Tell You What I know about Trust
- Attending the Party
- Dear X
- #2
- Punish
- Mercy
- Hosting
- Ode to the Pubic Hair Stuck in my Throat
- Note
- Heavy
- Notes on Staying
April 12, 2018
Hieu Minh Nguyen is an unstoppable light? An incomparable force? A delight to the senses? Yes. Once again, Nguyen has written a collection that left me gasping for breath and grasping for more. His poems are introspective, reflective, and gorgeous. He spills what feels like his whole being on the page writing about childhood trauma, sex with strangers, his relationship with his mother, and being a depressed person just trying to get by. What he leaves is a collection full of a passion, at times cool and at times red hot, that simultaneously welcomes the reader and indicts them in their own voyuerism. So many excellent works in here, from learning about brotherhood through a cockfight to his ongoing "White Boy Time Machine" series. I truly loved his poem "Monica West is Moving to Omaha, Nebraska," like one of my favorite poems ever and hearing him deliver it at his release was *chef's kisses*. Also, Hieu designed his own cover, I STAN!
May 16, 2021
Started in the morning and kept coming back to this throughout the day -- I simply couldn't put this down. The reflections about Nguyen's relationship with his mother were outstanding, but I was also particularly mesmerized by the poems about his complicated history with white men.
Perhaps my favorite line: "I'm trying to understand that memory / is not a technology, a full charge / will get you nowhere, if you're stuck / tracing the perimeters of your dull nostalgia / for an exit."
Perhaps my favorite line: "I'm trying to understand that memory / is not a technology, a full charge / will get you nowhere, if you're stuck / tracing the perimeters of your dull nostalgia / for an exit."
May 31, 2018
Nguyen's debut collection is outstanding. If you have enjoyed the work of Kaveh Akbar, Ocean Vuong, and Chen Chen, this is very much in the same thread. It is an exciting time in poetry.
August 16, 2021
3.5.
This is the third collection of poetry I’ve read by a Vietnamese-American poet recently, after Dear Diaspora & Night Sky with Exit Wounds. While I did enjoy it overall, I did struggle with what I frequently do in poetry- just not “getting” certain poems. Most of the themes are about his family (mother specifically), queer identity/sex, and connections with the past.
Those that left me with the strongest impression are listed below.
Highlights: White Boy Time Machine: Override, Nguyễn, Pig, Cockfight, Type II, Reunion
This is the third collection of poetry I’ve read by a Vietnamese-American poet recently, after Dear Diaspora & Night Sky with Exit Wounds. While I did enjoy it overall, I did struggle with what I frequently do in poetry- just not “getting” certain poems. Most of the themes are about his family (mother specifically), queer identity/sex, and connections with the past.
Those that left me with the strongest impression are listed below.
Highlights: White Boy Time Machine: Override, Nguyễn, Pig, Cockfight, Type II, Reunion
January 18, 2024
"Too often, I don't tell people (people I love) I am sad. I don't think that's something they would want to hear. Because they love me. Because I don't want them to feel like the currency of their tenderness isn't enough when it has been & will be again, but, well, if I'm being completely honest, today is hard."
Felt seen by this line and many other beautiful others throughout this collection. What a master class, and the forms and themes here are a big inspiration to my own work! My faves were probably "Notes on Staying" and "Monica West Is Moving To Omaha, Nebraska".
Felt seen by this line and many other beautiful others throughout this collection. What a master class, and the forms and themes here are a big inspiration to my own work! My faves were probably "Notes on Staying" and "Monica West Is Moving To Omaha, Nebraska".
February 4, 2022
C/W:
There were some beautiful poems in Not Here along with a lot of really heavy emotional themes that I wasn't really prepared for.
There were some beautiful poems in Not Here along with a lot of really heavy emotional themes that I wasn't really prepared for.
"If sanctuary is not a place, but the people we love all under the same impossible & temporary light, how can we convince anyone to stay?"
September 8, 2019
I was tagging poems and lines I loved, and at the end realised I had tagged every single damn poem in this book. Incredible.
January 19, 2018
“Like all agony, there are pleasant moments / but only when we forget / what carried us here," says Hieu Minh Nguyen’s Not Here. His is a brutally beautiful collection of poems that considers home, queerness, Vietnamese American identity, whiteness, trauma. It is imbued with a hungry wit, seeking belonging, seeking existence, seeking survival. The speaker interrogates his own origins: the blanks, the empty spaces, the words whited-out. "Oh, but why am I here?," he asks. The memories he encounters are fossilized creatures, unearthed as these poems kneel down in a field and sift the dirt of childhood through their fingers, looking to see what forgiveness they might find.
February 6, 2018
In his new collection Not Here, poet Hieu Minh Nguyen writes “there are countless ways / to justify company. Hunger, overdue balance, whatever.” Here’s how to justify your company with this book: it’s terrific and heartbreaking poetry, a thrill to read. The book’s speaker grieves, desires, cries, and develops a difficult truce with his disproving mother. The son-of-immigrants queer identity is a cause of siege (“the problem / with history / somewhere somewhere someone wants you / gone”) yet the book finds a well-earned hope as it nears its beautiful conclusion. Spanning a full range of feeling, and told in immediate and commanding language, Not Here is a must-read.
December 27, 2023
I guess I'm trying to understand what makes a man carry guilt the same way he would a bat.
because grief can taste of sugar if you run your tongue along the right edge
In my dreams, the bouquet falls from the sky. Sometimes it's on fire. Sometimes it's just a skull but I catch it - I catch it, every time.
What am I supposed to do now, now that I've spent most of my life without you, but still need you to save me?
I'm told to be open to the possibility of not being a monster
Any adjective can be true if you cry hard enough.
I think about the world on fire & the music we choose to play anyway.
because grief can taste of sugar if you run your tongue along the right edge
In my dreams, the bouquet falls from the sky. Sometimes it's on fire. Sometimes it's just a skull but I catch it - I catch it, every time.
What am I supposed to do now, now that I've spent most of my life without you, but still need you to save me?
I'm told to be open to the possibility of not being a monster
Any adjective can be true if you cry hard enough.
I think about the world on fire & the music we choose to play anyway.
July 2, 2018
This collection is full of love and pain, and something in between. I felt these poems, which is one of the best things you can ask for from poetry. Particular favorites include: "White Boy Time Machine: Instruction Manual," "Nguyen," "Type II," "The Study," "Again, What Do I Know About Desire?," "Again, Let Me Explain Again," "Mercy," "White Boy Time Machine: Override," "Changling," "The Ranger," and "Notes on Staying."
April 25, 2018
Woah.
April 25, 2018
When I wasn’t crying I was smiling. These poems shine bright with the glittery blood of trauma and truth. These poems are raw and require attention.
August 17, 2018
Great ambition here, and when the poems work, he’s nearly peerless.
July 16, 2018
Beautiful, heartbreaking, and visceral. I haven’t been this moved by poetry in a long time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 209 reviews