Maw Shein Win, Unpacking Her Volume of Poetry 'Storage Unit for the Spirit House'

When the poet Maw Shein Win was faced with the wearisome task of moving, it got her thinking about her relationship with her things. She found a storage unit for the objects she didn't part with and she realized that, while the storage unit contained her things, her things, in turn, were containers as well--of memory, emotions, and attachments. At the same time, she had been researching nat spirits, something she was familiar with from her upbringing as a Buddhist. Her parents, Burmese immigrants, didn't worship nats, but she knew it was a common practice among many Buddhists in Myanmar. These preoccupations led to her latest volume of poetry, Storage Unit for the Spirit House. Her work in this book has been called "marvelous, timely, and resilient," (D.A. Powell). Maw Shein Win is described as a "mistress of the acute, quietly searing detail..." (Amy Gerstler). The poems, written in 2019, were prescient of a year in which everyone would find themselves contained at home, perhaps with nats of their own making mischief?

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