Steven Duong

Steven Duong

Grinnell College

Steven Duong

Project

Freshwater Fish and the Poetry of Containment

  • Malawi
    • ,
  • China
    • ,
  • Thailand
    • ,
  • Vietnam

[email protected]

The impossible mission of the aquarist is to display the natural world in all its beauty and complexity within the confines of a glass box, without pretending that this box is the world itself. The poet’s mission is similar, and just as impossible. As both poet and aquarist, I spent this year seeking out fish breeders, evolutionary biologists and aquarium hobbyists, even fish fighters. By forming relationships with the people I met and using my poetry as a tool for observation and understanding, I immersed in human stories of movement, identity, belonging, and of course, fish, finding common ground in all these stories, as I built poems to house my own.

Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation
Steven Duong traveling with the Watson Foundation

2019 Fellows