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.
Going to meet the wave
I love the sea; I fear the sea. Growing up on a tiny island meant a close relationship with the sea, but my primal fear of it, nurtured by sayings like, “Sea don’t have no back door,” has meant that despite knowing how to swim, I never venture far from shore and never ever swim out.
Sometimes one must embrace death …