A review of Diana Khoi Nguyen's 'Ghost Of'
Part archive, part elegy, Diana Khoi Nguyen’s debut collection of poetry, Ghost Of, presents the haunting portrait of a grieving family set against a backdrop of intergenerational trauma. Written four years after the poet’s brother took his own life, Nguyen’s poems register this loss as it is refracted through the story of her parents’ immigration to the US as refugees in the wake of the Vietnam War.
All origin stories are Newtonian, part 2 of 2
From cultural narratives to religion to comic-book characters to conceptions of self, origin stories often serve to explain belief systems and histories within the context of a defined beginning, middle, and end. Origin stories are narrative devices steeped in limitations of both form and content.