The Indivisible Body of Reality

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Teresa Mei Chuc (a.k.a. Tuệ Mỹ Chúc) was born in Sài Gòn Việt Nam shortly after the Việt Nam War and grew up in Pasadena California. She was Altadena Poet Laureate (Editor-in-Chief) from 2018 to 2020 and has been a Pasadena Rose Poet since 2016. Teresa is the author of three books of poetry </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Invisible Light</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> (Many Voices Press 2018) </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Keeper of the Winds</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> (FootHills Publishing 2014) and </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Red Thread</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> (Fithian Press 2012). Her poetry chapbook</span><span style=color: rgba(68 68 68 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> </span><em style=color: rgba(68 68 68 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Incidental Take</em><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>s</em><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> </em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>was published by Hummingbird Press in 2023. She is co-editor of the anthology </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War </em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>(Scarlet Tanager Books 2025). Teresa is a public high school English teacher in Los Angeles in her twenty-first year of teaching. </span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>Teresa Mei Chuc's work is sublime. Moving between nature's profundity to the power of the people Teresa always has this languid way to encompass all and everything-the textured beauty and the chaos of colonization. Wielding words into our fractured existences giving us meaning and an understanding of resistance this poetry chapbook </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>The Indivisible Body of Reality </em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>is an anthem for our times. -Fariha Róisín author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>How To Cure A Ghost</em></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>When a reader enters into a Teresa Mei Chuc poem she or he finds not just the brilliance of intelligent and inspiring metaphors but also a window into a new world. That's a guarantee. I am reminded of Bertolt Brecht's phrase: Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it. Just when I thought as a veteran of the American war in Vietnam that I had seen that war and its impact on people from all possible angles Teresa enters the scene to re-shape my perspective. Not that she dwells on the details. No. She uses her amazing gifts to bring us into a new world. She opens herself up to all of existence reminding us that our interdependence with all life forms defines who we are. For that we are eternally grateful. - Douglas Rawlings author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>In the Shadow of the Annamese Mountains</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> and co-founder of Veterans for Peace</span></p>