Join Deep Vellum Books for an evening of readings from Raised by Wolves and music inspired by the book performed by Gregg Prickett.
About the Book
Incisive and confessional, Raised by Wolves collects the most acclaimed work of Taiwanese poet -filmmaker Amang. In her poems, Amang turns her razor-sharp eye to everything from her suitors ("For twenty years I’ve loved you, twenty years / So why not say yes / You want to see my nude photos ?") to international affairs —"You’d have to win the lottery ten times over / And the U.N. hasn’t won it even once." Keenly observational yet occasionally absurd, these poems are urgent and lucid, as Amang embraces the cruelty and beauty of life in equal measure.
Raised by Wolves also presents a groundbreaking new framework for translation. Far from positing the transition between languages as an invisible and fixed process, Amang and translator Steve Bradbury let the reader in. Multiple English versions of the same Chinese poem often accompany dialogues between author and translator: the two debate as wide -ranging topics as the merits of English tenses, the role of Chinese mythology, and whether to tell the truth you have to lie a little, or a lot. Author, her poems, and translator, work in tandem, "Wanting that which was unbearable / To appear unbearable / Just as it should be."
About the Performer
Gregg Prickett is one of the most skilled and consistently creative guitarists in all of North Texas. From Dallas, he cut his teeth playing with various jazz combos, rock and country groups in a professional capacity around town. From the early 2000's to the present he founded and still leads the Monks of Saturnalia, a jazz group playing a cutting-edge style that took influence from post-bop, free jazz, rock, and a particularly Mingus-inspired sense of lush harmony. He is a member of Unconscious Collective, a particularly heavy and heady jazz-rock crossover that incorporates aspects of psychedelia, experimentation, free improvisation, and dense composition, not to mention a visual/physical body art aspect that is by turns theatrical and ritualistic. In addition he delved into the outer sonic reaches with Sarah Ruth Alexander in They Say The Wind Made Them Crazy , a duo from North Texas in which Prickett and Alexander explored a dense, dark, and emotional brand of avant-garde folk music , instigated the formation of Trio Du Sang, a globally infused polymer of electro-acoustic mayhem , the rare and mysterious solo project Habu Habu and was also a member of the last line-up of Ronald Shannon Jackson’s pioneering jazz/funk/punk crossover group The Decoding Society, and played on their final performance, which included two of his compositions. He was a member of Dead To A Dying World during the period that produced the album Litany. During a short period living in Chicago, he played in experimental jazz/ metal collective, Asylum . A list of other Dallas rock bands he has been in includes The Buena Vistas , "66" , The Immaculates, The Falkon, The Black Dotz, Shanghai 5 and many others. His Ochre House crimes include guitarist for Dr. Bobaganush, guitarist and mystic wrangler/drifter for Smile, Smile Again , Doom McCoy and the Death Nugget, Mousey, Razz, Mrs. Haggardly and St. Ella.