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A review by kyatic
Dear Diaspora by Susan Nguyen
3.0
(Review of an ARC received via Netgalley)
Not all poetry collections work for everyone, and I'm perfectly happy to admit that this one just wasn't really for me. I mean that literally; I genuinely think that only people who have a specific diaspora experience will really connect to this one, and that's not a bad thing. It speaks beautifully to that particular experience. Nguyen's language is haunting and evocative, and some of her imagery is so visual that it was almost like watching a film. Some of it was just so abstract that I couldn't grasp it at all, though, and those poems left me wanting. I'm willing to acknowledge that this is most likely entirely a Me problem. Nguyen is an incredibly talented poet, and honestly, I would absolutely devour a novel (even a novel-in-verse!) written from the perspective of Suzi, the mouthpiece character in this collection. Give me a book by Nguyen which has a little more structure and something more tangible for me to grasp, and I'm right there.
Not all poetry collections work for everyone, and I'm perfectly happy to admit that this one just wasn't really for me. I mean that literally; I genuinely think that only people who have a specific diaspora experience will really connect to this one, and that's not a bad thing. It speaks beautifully to that particular experience. Nguyen's language is haunting and evocative, and some of her imagery is so visual that it was almost like watching a film. Some of it was just so abstract that I couldn't grasp it at all, though, and those poems left me wanting. I'm willing to acknowledge that this is most likely entirely a Me problem. Nguyen is an incredibly talented poet, and honestly, I would absolutely devour a novel (even a novel-in-verse!) written from the perspective of Suzi, the mouthpiece character in this collection. Give me a book by Nguyen which has a little more structure and something more tangible for me to grasp, and I'm right there.