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theillegiblevirgo's review
5.0
diana does it again.
questions i’m left with:
how is memory a haunting?
language is alive. what does remembering that offer you?
how many times must a thing break for the fracture to be permanent?
questions i’m left with:
how is memory a haunting?
language is alive. what does remembering that offer you?
how many times must a thing break for the fracture to be permanent?
tjrober2's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I cannot stress enough, how much i love Nguyen’s work. Didn’t think i could enjoy anything more than i did with her first collection Ghost Of. And here we are.
I think in many ways this is a much more challenging but expansive work. Still innovative and deploying the cutting, arrangement, and textual layering elements of Ghost Of, but taking it to a whole new level. Absolutely love the way this collection is more thoroughly invested in the links between generational, familial, nation, and personal trauma. There really no time beyond war. So what then is time?
I think in many ways this is a much more challenging but expansive work. Still innovative and deploying the cutting, arrangement, and textual layering elements of Ghost Of, but taking it to a whole new level. Absolutely love the way this collection is more thoroughly invested in the links between generational, familial, nation, and personal trauma. There really no time beyond war. So what then is time?
letstalkaboutbooksbaybee's review
3.0
This is a poetry collection that deals with some heavy themes, her parents immigrating, their love back in their home country during the war, her brother’s suicide, and just all the generational trauma encompassed in that.
I really really loved the unique format the author did with this book, shaping her poetry around pictures of her family. I also loved the repeating thematic writing she had in here.
aidancdaniel's review
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: War
Minor: Emotional abuse, Suicide, Child abuse, and Domestic abuse
margaretzadie's review
4.5
So beautiful. This was a book to really study, a more formally innovative version of studying Lucie Brock Broido, which makes sense bc LBB was Diana’s mentor!
Favorite sets of poems were the Doi Moi series. I loved their were several “types” of poems: cape disappointment, root fracture, misinformation. Love a moment of repetition in poetry, like you keep looking at the same thing thru different sized lenses.
Last section was my fav.
Favorite sets of poems were the Doi Moi series. I loved their were several “types” of poems: cape disappointment, root fracture, misinformation. Love a moment of repetition in poetry, like you keep looking at the same thing thru different sized lenses.
Last section was my fav.
eggandart's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
"It is easier for a child to focus on one monster, because to know that there are multiple, in varying degrees and numerous places, can be too much to bear for one so small. And what to do with an intermittent one?" (107)
Overlaps & elisions; one event occluding/illuminating another; state violence and more state violence; sound/presence, absence/silence; sins of omission; familial violence: overt and insidious, intentional/unintentional; accretion of choices/hurts
I only read about bees now.
Overlaps & elisions; one event occluding/illuminating another; state violence and more state violence; sound/presence, absence/silence; sins of omission; familial violence: overt and insidious, intentional/unintentional; accretion of choices/hurts
I only read about bees now.