![]() ![]() Can you ever truly belong with your siblings, your parents? Can you ever do it without them, or will you always be finding cut apart photographs? If you always answer no, will you ever get a different answer? Most cuttingly of all, where there is no question: you cannot keep your brother alive. You cannot keep your brother alive.” In the aftermath of this cutting out, of this removal of Oliver, of a brother, Nguyen’s poetry grapples with the concept of connection, of what is left, of what can be had with a sliced up family. You cannot keep your brother alive if you keep your mouth shut. You cannot connect if you keep answering no. ![]() In the title poem “Ghost Of,” Nguyen writes, “Is belonging and fulfillment possible without family? No. Some of the poems echo this, with whole chunks sliced out and placed on the next page, poems with holes that ache and weep, like what you see on page thirty-six and thirty-seven: Oliver, cut out of the poem, words in the shape of his body, misplaced. This plays out again and again throughout the book, the cutting out of, the making of space you do not want. The space he leaves behind is gaping, and sharp, and draws your eye like a train wreck. Over the span of various pages, in “ Triptych,” we see pictures of Nguyen with her siblings, childhood photos, in which Oliver is cut out. I know a little too much about dead brothers, a little too bleeding, a little too burnt, a little too late. You see, Ghost Of is about Nguyen’s brother, Oliver, who took his own life. Her book is a tombstone, hand carved, and it feels just as heavy as the one I carry around. Maybe I was digesting maybe I was trying to let the text fade from my mouth a little bit before I tried to sound it out maybe it just hurt too damn bad.ĭiana Nguyen’s Ghost Of is our 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award winner here at Claremont Graduate University, and her book is so much more than poetry, so much more than just visuals. I ate this book alive, more than once, but it has taken me awhile to write about. I was heading home for my late brother’s thirty-first birthday, and I brought with me to read Diana Khoi Nguyen’s Ghost Of. ![]() This past spring break, I boarded the late night train to Tucson again, carrying a shopping bag of cacti and clutching a poetry book in my hand. ![]()
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