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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.
gar42's review
dark
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I loved listening to this book. The audio version also comes with a pdf of the visual poems included in the collection.
Diana Khoi Nguyen expertly weaves photograph, collage, archive, and history into a brilliant portrait of family, immigration, and war.
Beautiful, wrenching, and artistic. What is left out of a photograph—a history—and what lives inside.
Diana Khoi Nguyen expertly weaves photograph, collage, archive, and history into a brilliant portrait of family, immigration, and war.
Beautiful, wrenching, and artistic. What is left out of a photograph—a history—and what lives inside.
Content Warnings
Minor: Suicide
brice_mo's review
5.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC!
Both haunted and haunting, Diana Khoi Nguyen’s Root Fractures is the epitome of a focused set of poems, and it is one I will revisit often.
It’s a bit of a cliché to say a collection is “about” violence, and I think books with that premise are often counter-productive. How much can you condemn or mourn something you devote your attention to? Nguyen seems to recognize this, which creates a dynamic I’ve never seen in poems before. Violence is present as a disruption rather than a focus, often abruptly cutting into poems with a jarring severity—such as in “Selkie Weaning Young”—or pulsing underneath the text.
The book’s title feels deeply appropriate, as readers are never quite certain when a latent grief will suddenly rupture through and completely destabilize the text.
A great example of this is “A Story About Holes,” which is easily one of the most incredible poems I have ever encountered. Nguyen’s ability to weave sorrow, language, and family into an extended piece on cosmic (in)significance is nothing short of masterful. It’s the type of poem that could easily bloat into a cliché, but the poet’s willingness to broach that space makes it all the stronger.
As much as I harp on how poems should “invite people in,” I think there’s something to be said for work that knowingly creates space for the author and any estrangement they might feel. Some of my favorite pieces in this book circle around the speaker’s relationship to the Vietnamese language, and I thought the navigation of bilingualism and slippery phonosemantic challenges in one of the “Đổi Mới” poems was one of the collection’s highlights. Likewise, I appreciate that the book opens with a piece entirely in Vietnamese. Readers may not be able to understand or pronounce the text, but any alienation they feel cultivates compassion and reminds them—this isn’t all for you. It instead allows Nguyen to explore language as a gentle intimacy—or sometimes lack thereof—with both family and history.
Having said that, this is a collection without a single wasted syllable, so readers will never feel lost. Additionally, many poems share titles, and it creates a rhythm of thematic reiteration that pulls the reader in. I sometimes feel frustrated if it feels like a book of poetry isn’t going anywhere—this one feels intentioned from the start.
Finally, it’s been a while since poems made me cry so much. There are some collections where it feels like a disservice to go into too much detail out of respect for the poet’s openness, and this is one of them. Just read it.
Both haunted and haunting, Diana Khoi Nguyen’s Root Fractures is the epitome of a focused set of poems, and it is one I will revisit often.
It’s a bit of a cliché to say a collection is “about” violence, and I think books with that premise are often counter-productive. How much can you condemn or mourn something you devote your attention to? Nguyen seems to recognize this, which creates a dynamic I’ve never seen in poems before. Violence is present as a disruption rather than a focus, often abruptly cutting into poems with a jarring severity—such as in “Selkie Weaning Young”—or pulsing underneath the text.
The book’s title feels deeply appropriate, as readers are never quite certain when a latent grief will suddenly rupture through and completely destabilize the text.
A great example of this is “A Story About Holes,” which is easily one of the most incredible poems I have ever encountered. Nguyen’s ability to weave sorrow, language, and family into an extended piece on cosmic (in)significance is nothing short of masterful. It’s the type of poem that could easily bloat into a cliché, but the poet’s willingness to broach that space makes it all the stronger.
As much as I harp on how poems should “invite people in,” I think there’s something to be said for work that knowingly creates space for the author and any estrangement they might feel. Some of my favorite pieces in this book circle around the speaker’s relationship to the Vietnamese language, and I thought the navigation of bilingualism and slippery phonosemantic challenges in one of the “Đổi Mới” poems was one of the collection’s highlights. Likewise, I appreciate that the book opens with a piece entirely in Vietnamese. Readers may not be able to understand or pronounce the text, but any alienation they feel cultivates compassion and reminds them—this isn’t all for you. It instead allows Nguyen to explore language as a gentle intimacy—or sometimes lack thereof—with both family and history.
Having said that, this is a collection without a single wasted syllable, so readers will never feel lost. Additionally, many poems share titles, and it creates a rhythm of thematic reiteration that pulls the reader in. I sometimes feel frustrated if it feels like a book of poetry isn’t going anywhere—this one feels intentioned from the start.
Finally, it’s been a while since poems made me cry so much. There are some collections where it feels like a disservice to go into too much detail out of respect for the poet’s openness, and this is one of them. Just read it.