Think of kwv txhiaj as song poetry.
Or better yet, think of it like a Hmong version of the blues. And in that vein, think of kwv txhiaj the way American writer Ralph Ellison thought of the blues: “an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically.”
Ellison’s quote starts off a new book about kwv txhiaj and one of its singers, a man named Bee Yang. The story is by his daughter, award-winning author Kao Kalia Yang. It’s called “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father.”
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