In her debut poetry collection Muscle Memory, Washington-based poet Jenny Liou grapples with violence and identity, beginning with the chain-link enclosure of the prizefighter’s cage and radiating outward into the diasporic sweep of Chinese American history. Join Liou and poet Sally Wen Mao for readings and conversation.

October 1 | 5:30 – 7:00 pm ET | Yu & Me Books, 44 Mulberry St, New York, NY | Free!

Jenny Liou is the author of Muscle Memory (Kaya Press). She is an English professor at Pierce College and a retired professional cage fighter. She lives and writes in Tacoma, Washington.

Sally Wen Mao is the author of three collections of poetry, The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023), Oculus (Graywolf Press, 2019), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Mad Honey Symposium (Alice James Books, 2014). The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she was recently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library and a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Best American Poetry 2021 and 2013, The Paris Review, Poetry, Harpers Bazaar, A Public Space, Granta, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, Guernica, and A Public Space, among others.