LACY SOTO | DATE 10/22/2022

Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles Bookstore presents Jenny Liou signing 'Muscle Memory'

Saturday, October 22 at 3 PM, Artbook @ Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles Bookstore presents retired cage fighter Jenny Liou celebrating her debut book of poetry, Muscle Memory. Liou will read from the book, followed by a conversation with fellow Kaya Press author Sam Chanse and a signing. Pre-order a signed copy of the book here!

In 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. Liou writes with spare, stunning lyricism about how cage fighting offered relief from the trauma inflicted by diaspora’s vanishing ghosts; how, in the cage, an elbow splits an eyebrow, or an armbar snaps a limb, and, even when you lose a fight, you’ve won something: pain. Liou places the physical manifestation of violence in her sport alongside the deeper traumas of immigration and her own complicated search for identity, exploring what she inherited from her Chinese immigrant father—who was also obsessed with poetry and martial arts. When she finally steps away from the cage to raise children of her own, Liou begins to question how violence and history pass from one generation to the next, and whether healing is possible without forgetting.

Jenny Liou (born 1983) is an English professor at Pierce College and a retired professional cage fighter. She lives and writes in Covington, Washington.

This event is FREE to attend and will take place in the bookstore.

ARTBOOK @ HAUSER & WIRTH LOS ANGELES BOOKSTORE
Jenny Liou Book Signing
Saturday, October 22 at 3 PM
917 East 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
Phone: 213-988-7413