"A Nail the Evening Hangs On" by Monica Sok (Paperback)

In her debut collection, Monica Sok uses poetry to reshape a family's memory about the Khmer Rouge regime—memory that is both real and imagined—according to a child of refugees. Driven by myth-making and fables, the poems examine the inheritance of the genocide and the profound struggles of searing grief and PTSD.

Though the landscape of Cambodia is always present, it is the liminal space, the in-betweenness of diaspora, in which younger generations must reconcile their history and create new rituals. A Nail the Evening Hangs On seeks to reclaim the Cambodian narrative with tenderness and an imagination that moves towards wholeness and possibility.

Monica Sok is a Cambodian American poet and the daughter of former refugees. Her work has been recognized with the Discovery Prize from 92Y. Currently, Sok is a 2018-2020 Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. She lives in Oakland, California where she teaches poetry to Southeast Asian youths at Banteay Srei and the Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants.