A series of poetic remixes, WAR IS NOT MY MOTHER might be considered a form of spirit possession. Each poem in this manuscript takes up another poet’s work—a selection that ranges from Lorca to CD Wright, Hồ Xuân Hương to Sappho, Agha Shahid Ali to Ishrat Afreen—and alters its DNA, infusing it with an other idiolect. This is an idiolect of pleasure (the wordplay, puns, and cadence of the Vietnamese language) and of pain (the long shadow of the Vietnam war in the lives of those who survived, barely survived, and became refugees). Like any possessing spirit, WAR IS NOT MY MOTHER speaks in tongues: using others’ words to articulate a personal pain. Shorn of their original context and content, the poems in this collection—mutant-hybrids who retain a trace of their skeleton while dressed in entirely other clothes—become a play of voices that call into question notions of authenticity and self in poetic production, a postmodern twist for the classical craft.
"Bipartisan Monarch." Mercury Firs. Edited by Ian Lockable. Summer 2023
"Confusion." She Who Has No Master(s). Fall 2019
"Ectothermic Women." OOMPH! Press. Edited by Daniel Beauregard
"False Tanka (s)." SPECTRA Poets. Edited by Erica Theresa Avey. Fall 2021
"Jacket." Washing Square Review. Edited by Mallory Imler Powell. Fall 2019
"Northern Mourning." She Who Has No Master(s). Fall 2019
"One Day I'll Have Vietnam Again." She Who Has No Master(s). Fall 2019
"Opium." Granta. Edited by Rachael Allen. Fall 2019
"Petition the Air." SPECTRA Poets. Edited by Erica Theresa Avey. Fall 2021
"Sadacre." The Baffler. Edited by J.W. McCormack. Fall 2022
"Soak the Government in Ashes." Granta. Edited by Rachael Allen. Fall 2019
"Tết." 24 VIEWS. Edited by Tiffany Lin. Summer 2021
Vinous Intentions." Mercury Firs. Edited by Ian Lockable. Summer 2023
"Violets Grasping for Air." Granta. Edited by Rachael Allen. Fall 2019
"War Is Not My Mother." She Who Has No Master(s). Fall 2019
"Water and Rice." LA Review of Books. Edited by Elizabeth Metzger. Winter 2023
"Water Bean." BRINK. Edited by Hannah Bonner. Fall 2021
"Within Ten Seconds." Flown to Space, Curated Poem Collection by Inspiration4 Pilot, Dr. Sian Proctor. Fall 2021
INTERVIEWS