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.
Jerome Rothenberg: On the achievement of David Meltzer, a preface & a memorial
[The word of David Meltzer’s death came to us the morning after & on the threshold of a new & dangerous year in which his friendship & kindly spirit will be greatly missed by the many of us who drew from & treasured his grace of mind & the life of poetry that surrounds it. In the immediate aftermath I thought to reprint the preface I was privileged to write for his selected poems (David’s Copy, Penguin Poets, 2005) & the short poem, composed by gematria, that follows.