“Me too” is not just a show of solidarity among women who have endured sexual harassment and assault. The toxic and destructive culture that has bred that awfulness knows no gender boundaries. A part of this picture includes men and boys who have experienced its horrors and indignities.

This week I have been sharing the work of poets who have addressed different aspects of these things. Today it is American poet Hieu Minh Nguyen. From his website:

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Press, 2014) which was a finalist for both a Minnesota Book Awards and a Lambda Literary Awards. A queer Vietnamese American poet, Hieu is a Kundiman fellow and a poetry editor for Muzzle Magazine. His work has also appeared in the Southern Indiana Review, Guernica, Ninth Letter, Devil’s Lake, Bat City Review, the Paris-American, and elsewhere. Hieu is a nationally touring poet, performer, and teaching artist. He lives in Minneapolis where he flails his arms and forgets to take his clothes out of the dryer.

And he has a sense of humor, too, as you can see. This spoken word video is powerful and real. Fair warning that some of the language is strong, however there is nothing in this presentation that comes close to the obscenities he is working to exorcise from his heart and soul.