Amaranth Borsuk reviews Diana Khoi Nguyen’s Ghost Of

IAS faculty member Amaranth Borsuk reviews Nguyen's first book of poems, Ghost Of, in Lana Turner 11. Combining lyric reflections and visual poetry in invented forms, Nguyen's book explores the after-effects of her brother's suicide, which was preceded by his careful excision of himself from family photos in her parents' home. The gaps left behind become frames or nets in which Nguyen's language is caught as she tries to reconstruct her missing sibling. Borsuk writes, "While these visual poems strike at the reader’s heart and open up our understanding of loss, the collection gestures beyond them in a series of lyrics that remind us grief does not occur in isolation—it is part of a wider net of trauma cast by the Vietnam War, which [Nguyen's] parents survived, and which marks not only their sense of self, but their children’s identities as well." Read the full review.