The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a reading and discussion with Kao Kalia Yang. In her new book, The Song Poet, the author of the highly acclaimed The Latehomecomer, draws on her conversations with her father, a song poet in the Hmong tradition, who brought his family out of danger of war and the poverty of refugee camps to make a new life in Minnesota. This new life led him to sacrifice his poetic gift to become a factory worker and, with his partner, to support his family. Through the telling of his story, The Song Poet offers a reflection on Hmong experiences in diaspora, and, especially, the power of poetry to bring meaning to our lives.