Verisimilitude

Poetry. Asian American Studies. In the sequence of poems that make up VERISIMILITUDE, Hung Q. Tu presents a skeptical and often comic view of the array (and disarray) comprising post-Vietnam War culture. The poems are lyric in mode, suspicious in tone. The pace is fast, the scope panoramic. The works reflect Hung Q. Tu's interest in documentaries and documentation, the modes by which contemporary American (or Americanized) culture attempts to portray itself and authorize its undertakings: flatten Nagasaki/ break code/ cold erode/ as postmodern/ as a cul-de-sac/ provide a reading/ map crazy/ engineering fan/ blueprint fantasies/ an invisible light/ bouncing between/ two bicycle reflectors/ deaf-tone/ point to it son.