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.
Fuck poems
In extremis
Poems are bullshit unless they are / Teeth or trees or lemons piled / on a step.
… Fuck poems / And they are useful, would they shoot / come at you, love what you are …— Amiri Baraka
Poems are bullshit unless they are / Teeth or trees or lemons piled / on a step.
… Fuck poems / And they are useful, would they shoot / come at you, love what you are …— Amiri Baraka