We Follow the River tells the story of one family’s escape from military violence in Myanmar, their exiled existence in Thailand, and their immigration to Canada with only a pile of beat up suitcases on a luggage cart. It is about growing up as a foreigner in a foreign land, sifting through family history and grief, and alighting across cultures and continents to find a home.

Onjana Yawnghwe’s third poetry book reveals an expertise in language—at times joyful, disobedient, wild, and other times condensed and restrained. A work of over twenty years, these poems are written and rewritten through the retroactive prism of experience, polished and honed, eroded and erased. Sweeping in scope, intimate and honest, these poems tell of the quiet moments, the unruly moments of rage and sorrow, the rough distillation of self, both hated and loved. These poems reside behind the secret, dark door of the self.

Onjana Yawnghwe was born in Thailand but is a part of the Shan people from Burma (Myanmar). She grew up in Vancouver and received a MA in English from UBC. Her poems have been featured in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2011, 4 Poets, CV2, Room, and The New Quarterly. She was also awarded the Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award for Emerging Literary Artist in 2012. She was a co-founder of Fish Magic, a micro press specializing in limited-run, hand-made chapbooks and was co-editor of Xerography, a little literary journal. Onjana currently works as a nurse in mental health and has completed a book-length biography-in-poems about Buster Keaton. More of her projects can be found at www.onjana.com.

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