In the Hollow of the Wave
Description
In the Hollow of the Wave, the second collection by Nina Mingya Powles, examines orientalism, art and artmaking in a time of ecological crisis. Influenced by the lives of women artists, and combining textile art, collage and poetry, these precise, remarkable poems reflect on the material of living, the thread of stories and memories held within fabrics and garments.
Through museum and gallery spaces, Powles examines creation and craft as a radical act of love, reclamation and resistance to the shadow of colonial legacies and attitudes. Engaging with the work of artists such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Yayoi Kusama, Etel Adnan and the fashion designer Guo Pei, these poems rework the notion of ekphrasis into something elemental and tactile, to find new ways of rendering shifting places, languages and selves; a thriving tapestry of nature and life in full and vivid colour.
Poetry Book of the Month, The Observer
Included in Best Recent Poetry Roundup, The Guardian
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Nina Mingya Powles is a writer and poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the author of several books including Slipstitch, a pamphlet of poems and collages (2024), Magnolia ¿¿ (2020), Tiny Moons: A Year of Eating in Shanghai (2020) and a collection of essays, Small Bodies of Water (2021). She writes a monthly substack on food and memory called Crispy Noodles. She has been shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Ondaatje Prize, and she was awarded the Women Poet's Prize in 2018 and the inaugural Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing in 2019. In the Hollow of the Wave is her second collection of poems published by Nine Arches Press.
