Scan barcode
A review by nathansnook
Root Fractures: Poems by Diana Khoi Nguyen
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.5
Major thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for offering me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:
This one's personal.
Diana, if you are reading this, many years were spent hating my heritage. But here, in the work, in the re-work, in the way memory works, and still figuring out how it works, in these little poems, puzzles, you make the work worth it. You make understanding worth it.
And now, I will understand too. Or try to. What I mean is I've tried to do my best, I'll continue to do my best, but I hope my mother will love me when I'm trying to understand as best I can.
The poems come vague in waves at first, trying to understand the war, the now of her parents, and the loss of her brother, but when the tides tighten, much like the way memory works, time reworks the poems into a kind of understanding by way of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in Dictee. Repetition smooths out rage, hate, guilt, and shame to become something more. Through words, through images, and even words on images. Over and over again, memory is telling in haunting echoes.
Here, Diana and her history becomes something more. It becomes the very act of becoming. Memory moves from πΈπ’π΄ to πͺπ΄. Or even further than that. It is is-ing.
If you enjoyed this review, please consider ordering the book through my affiliate link here.
This one's personal.
Diana, if you are reading this, many years were spent hating my heritage. But here, in the work, in the re-work, in the way memory works, and still figuring out how it works, in these little poems, puzzles, you make the work worth it. You make understanding worth it.
And now, I will understand too. Or try to. What I mean is I've tried to do my best, I'll continue to do my best, but I hope my mother will love me when I'm trying to understand as best I can.
The poems come vague in waves at first, trying to understand the war, the now of her parents, and the loss of her brother, but when the tides tighten, much like the way memory works, time reworks the poems into a kind of understanding by way of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in Dictee. Repetition smooths out rage, hate, guilt, and shame to become something more. Through words, through images, and even words on images. Over and over again, memory is telling in haunting echoes.
Here, Diana and her history becomes something more. It becomes the very act of becoming. Memory moves from πΈπ’π΄ to πͺπ΄. Or even further than that. It is is-ing.
If you enjoyed this review, please consider ordering the book through my affiliate link here.