Continental Drift

"To survive is to refuse / death, but how / to tell refusal from retreat?" In the 2025 Trio Award winning poetry collection Continental Drift, Mai-Linh Hong honors and explores the geography that made and continues to shape her ancestors' story, her own story, and the future story of her descendants. From Vietnam to Virginia, California to Thailand, Hong plumbs the fault lines, crosses the oceans, crystallizing moments into meaning. Whether luxuriating in the small joys of nature and of existence, or marveling at the process of geological shift, these artfully crafted poems bring the reader into the complex promises and griefs of migration, navigation, and claiming space in a postcolonial world.