08/12/2026
Huge congratulations to MFA alum Paul Christiansen, sometimes known as Doc Suds, whose poetry collection _River Octopus_ has been selected by Patricia Smith for the Miller Williams Poetry Series to be published by the University of Arkansas Press in spring 2027.
Of the collection, Smith writes: “Now that we can all admit that we live in an indiscernible world, Paul Christiansen, in his magical River Octopus, has arrived to help us discern what we can. Primarily set in his adoptive home of Vietnam, these subtle and searching poems urge us toward an understanding of self if we are to brave the wild uncertainties that surround us. There is still beauty in our bewilderment..."
“And so it is, a day to appoint myself emissary from the empire of self and venture into society,” announces the speaker in a poem that proceeds to traverse a surreal interpretation of modern-day Sài Gòn. Across River Octopus, society includes former Việt Cộng fighters, ice factory workers, colonial lacquer artists, rubber magnates, mobile lamination machine operators, Wisconsin liquor store patrons, and natural history museum janitors. The self, meanwhile, navigates outwards from an identity forged in the American Midwest but integrated into Việt Nam.
Christiansen’s poems investigate how the self and society work as accomplices in the actualization of joy and despair. Marked by a deference for whimsy and hallucinatory metaphors, they confront troubling personal and global issues with a wink and a nod to distract the face from grimacing.
Populated with a market’s spread of tropical fruit, fantastic ocean creatures, and geographies of the Mekong Delta, River Octopus seeks to answer what the speaker asks early in the collection: “What if this is the world doing the best it can do?”
ttps://www.uapress.com/2026/08/07/2027-miller-williams-poetry-prize-awarded-to-aris-kian/
