Opening with an exit, the poems in Precedented Parroting accept no assumptions. With the determination and curiosity of a problem-solving crow, this expansive debut plumbs personal archives and traverses the natural world, endeavouring to shake the tight cage of stereotypes, Asian and avian. Praised as “lively and intelligent” and “lyrically delicious,” Barbara Tran’s poetry offers us both the keen eye and grace of a hawk, “red-tailed gliding / on time.”

Barbara Tran’s poetry has been published in Conjunctions, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Her chapbook, In the Mynah Bird’s Own Words, was the winner of the inaugural Tupelo Press chapbook award. Barbara is also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, Bread Loaf Scholarship, and MacDowell Freund Fellowship. She is a co-editor of Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry and Prose, 25th Anniversary Edition and a co-writer of the short XR film Madame Pirate: Becoming a Legend, which was an Official Selection of SXSW and the Melbourne International Film Festival and in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Barbara’s writing is made possible through the supportive company of former shelter and rescue dogs.

Barbara Tran's profile page

Each poem in Precedented Parroting is a singular, sublime murmuration, their words swooping, shape-shifting, and thrumming with life.—

Monique Truong, author of The Book of Salt, Bitter in the Mouth, and The Sweetest Fruits