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.
Conditions of expanse
Algebraic equations of death
… in an altered time my breath catches yours my question to myself what poem would I have written if what has happened already hadn’t already happened what song would my throat have sung in between the notes moving with the breath of breath … what dance have danced me …
… in an altered time my breath catches yours my question to myself what poem would I have written if what has happened already hadn’t already happened what song would my throat have sung in between the notes moving with the breath of breath … what dance have danced me …
when i began this blog i felt as if COVID-19 stalked us, lurking behind doors, entering through keyholes —