Comments on Mystique:

Clara Hsu is an observer of the world most people don't see: the world inside a stranger's thoughts, the world of secret intentions in all dark corners of the universe. Listen to the magic hidden in her simple language, feel the beauty of her honest soul.

Gerald Nicosia
author of Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement & Memory Babe,
a biography of Jack Kerouac


Clara Hsu is to the page what Chinese opera and Bruce Lee are to the stage. Read with your soul and listen with your heart! What I'm trying to say is…this Sister is as traditional as she is ground breaking. The Mystique of her poetry is pure magic. In her hands, a metaphor sings like a folk song. Clara is a bold spirit!!!

There's an unstated Chinatown rhythm that dances aggressively, but gracefully, courageously and emotionally without ever letting go of her special gift of always being inclusive. This is the book you've been waiting for. Don't deny yourself! Your world deserves and needs the beauty of the Word that only Clara Hsu can give you.

Bright Moments,
Avotcja
KPOO & KPFA, poet and musician


Imagine a piano that plays not notes, but the movements of Chinese writing that is
immediately translated into American words and rhythms on the page, and you will be
able to approach and then enter many of the lovely sentiments that rule Clara Hsu's poetry. Short poems like "Waiting" and "It is I" are superb in their simplicity, and every longer poem has an inner virtuosity of composition that is the mark of a poet very self composed.

Jack Hirschman
San Francisco Poet Laureate

About Clara:

Clara was a nominee for the Pushcart Prize in poetry (2001). Some of her poems can be found in the Homestead Review, the North Coast Review, the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and the internet journal Red River Review. Her poem on censorship was published in 2003 by the North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance. Clara gives feature readings at various Bay Area venues and benefit events, but her home is the Sacred Grounds Café (Hayes and Cole), where poetry reading happens every Wednesday night.

In December 2005, Clara gave up her music business of 23 years to focus on her art and her unusual performance ensemble Lunation, which combines Chinese and original poetry with Asian traditional instruments. She is also developing the concept of the Poetry Hotel, organizing free social activities for the poet
community in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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