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.
Geomantic riposte: 'Oyama Pink Shale'
Born in Tisdale, Saskatchewan, and currently an inhabitant of the Okanagan “wild” in Kelowna BC, and self-identified in the company of poet George Stanley as a staunch “aboutist,” Sharon Thesen is indeed a literary rara avis whose score of witty, entertaining and insightful poetry books are balanced by solid editorial and academic contributions, including two editions of The New Long Poem Anthology, a Governor-General’s Award-winning edition of Phyllis Webb’s poetry (The Vision Tree), and with co-editor Ralph Maud, two books of correspondences between the poet Charles Olson and book designer Frances Boldereff — the most recent being After Completion: The Later Letters of Charles Olson and Frances Boldereff.