Engine Empire
{{Short description|2013 poetry collection by Cathy Park Hong}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2024}}{{Infobox book
| author = Cathy Park Hong
| isbn = 978-0393346480
| pub_date = August 5, 2013
| name = Engine Empire
| publisher = W. W. Norton & Company
| preceded_by = Translating Mo'um
| followed_by = Dance Dance Revolution
| pages = 96
| image = "Engine Empire" by Cathy Park Hong book cover.png
}}
Engine Empire is a 2013 poetry collection by American poet Cathy Park Hong, published by W. W. Norton & Company. Divided as a trilogy, the book's poems address topics such as industrialization, technology, and diaspora, with fictionalized settings in China and the speculative future.{{Cite book |last=Hong |first=Cathy Park |title=Engine Empire |date=August 5, 2013 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |isbn=978-0393346480}}
Content
The book is divided in three sections. The first section, "Ballad of Our Jim", is set in the Wild West and California gold rush. The second section, "Shangdu, My Artful Boomtown!", is set in a fictionalized boomtown resembling Shenzhen. The third section, "The World Cloud", is set in the speculative future where individual consciousnesses have been sublimated into data.
Some poems were originally published in literary magazines such as A Public Space, Conjunctions, and The American Poetry Review. In particular, a few poems from the first section first appeared in an issue of The Paris Review along with an interview with Hong.{{Cite news |last=Creswell |first=Robyn |date=August 23, 2011 |title=Cathy Park Hong on ‘Engine Empire’ |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/08/23/cathy-park-hong-on-engine-empire/ |work=The Paris Review}} "Engines Within the Throne" was reprinted in Poets.org.{{Cite web |last=Poets |first=Academy of American |title=Engines Within the Throne by Cathy Park Hong - Poems {{!}} Academy of American Poets |url=https://poets.org/poem/engines-within-throne |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=Poets.org |language=en}}
Critical reception
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly wrote, "This book is full of luminous surprises."{{Cite web |date=2012-02-20 |title=Engine Empire by Cathy Park Hong |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780393082845 |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=Publishers Weekly}}
The Poetry Foundation lauded Hong's lyricism and imagination, stating that "Hong's poetry creates whole worlds, instead of being satisfied with representing a small sliver of this one or this I."{{Cite web |last=Gilbert |first=Alan |date=2012-04-16 |title=Cathy Park Hong—Engine Empire |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/featured-blogger/63884/cathy-park-hong-engine-empire |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=The Poetry Foundation}} Slate called it a "sustaining book" that is "frequently giddy with humor and invention".{{Cite news |last=Farmer |first=Jonathan |date=2012-06-02 |title=The Snow Is Still in Beta |url=https://slate.com/culture/2012/06/poetry-review-engine-empire-by-cathy-park-hong.html |access-date=2024-10-30 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339}} Ploughshares wrote that "Hong’s brazen metaphors and determined personas transform a history of trauma into a sensitivity to the conditions of human survival."{{Cite web |last=Edelman |first=Rachel |date=2017-07-14 |title=Imagining the Anthropocene: Cathy Park Hong's Engine Empire |url=https://pshares.org/blog/imagining-the-anthropocene-cathy-park-hongs-engine-empire/ |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=Ploughshares |language=en-US}} The Rumpus called Hong "a strong storyteller as well as conceptual poet" and stated "Hong’s role as artist is also a dual one of both synthesis of the existing ideas and history of a place-time and then creation of new narratives on top of this history."{{Cite web |last=East |first=Nate |date=2012-08-22 |title=Engine Empire by Cathy Park Hong |url=https://therumpus.net/2012/08/22/engine-empire-by-cathy-park-hong/ |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=The Rumpus |language=en-US}} Observing the book's bleak worlds of globalization and capitalism, Gulf Coast said "the skill of Hong’s work is that it highlights how art can interact with these concerns while still being joyful, for there is indeed a lyrical joy to her multiplicity of forms."{{Cite web |last=Maling |first=Caitlin |title=A Booming Outpost of Poetry: Cathy Park Hong's Engine Empire |url=https://gulfcoastmag.org/journal/25.2/a-booming-outpost-of-poetry-cathy-park-hongs-engine-empire/ |access-date=2024-10-30 |website=Gulf Coast |language=en}}