Cover Image: Dear Diaspora

Dear Diaspora

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Member Reviews

living on empty / for weeks and months / looking for coastline / that did not push back

Dear Diaspora was a mixed bag for me. While some poems were too abstract for my tastes and failed to leave an impression, others like The Boat People (line above) were powerful.

I felt the poems with a tighter focus on the Vietnamese culture/language/immigrant experience were the strongest. Those with a story behind them or grounded in simple language were a pleasure to read, but some of the poems were too esoteric for me.

I am not typically a big reader of poetry, but am still glad to have had the chance to read this. I am sure those who have a greater appreciation for poetry will enjoy it even more than I did.

Highlights: The Boat People, Ode to Hunger, Grief as a Question, If I Say My Body Is Grieving

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3.5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and University of Nebraska Press for providing me with an ARC copy of Dear Diaspora.

Dear Diaspora introduces us to Suzi: ripping her leg hairs out with duct tape, praying for ecstasy during Sunday mass, dreaming up a language for buried familial trauma and discovering that such a language may not exist. Through a collage of lyric, documentary, and epistolary poems, we follow Suzi as she untangles intergenerational grief and her father’s disappearance while climbing trees to stare at the colour green and wishing that she wore Lucy Liu’s freckles. Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Dear Diaspora scrutinizes our turning away from the trauma of our past and our complicity in its erasure. Suzi, caught between enjoying a rundown American adolescence and living with the inheritances of war, attempts to unravel her own inherited grief as she explores the multiplicities of identity and selfhood against the backdrop of the Vietnamese diaspora. In its deliberate interweaving of voices, Dear Diaspora explores Suzi’s journey while bringing to light other incarnations of the refugee experience.

I am aware these poems were not written for me but I think they were still important to read and enjoy.

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This book talks about grief, maturing, immigration, identity, etc. Truly, I was entirely taken aback by this book because it’s so fascinating. Initially, I could not find the words to describe it because it’s so unique and, personally, very hard for me to categorize. But, its style and language was definitely new to me and I would recommend it for anybody wanting to branch out from their usual reading choices.

My only complaint is: I believe some parts of it could’ve been edited / remastered to become more personal / emotional. At times, it became a little monotonous and it needed a more intimate touch.

All in all, I love this book and it gave me the pleasure of that furrowing your eyebrows kind-of-confusion and continuing to read nevertheless to discover what it is that had long been unknown to you.

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It lays out the fragmented memory of someone who grew up in diaspora: snippets of survival, snatches of words and sounds and images from different languages, longing and colors. It gave my own broken, disparate diaspora memories a shape and language to hold on to.

Bold yet shyly intimate: this is a peek into Nguyen's childhood diary, and it feels like an honor to be trusted with such secrets.

A deeply moving project that deconstructs the body and memory as a series of puzzle pieces, waiting to unlock a grander narrative about the self and diaspora.

Favorite poems:
- If I Say My Body is Grieving
- Letter to the Diaspora (all of them)
- The Boat People
- Ode to Hunger
- Suzi as a Series of Questions
- Unending

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Dear Diaspora was a stunning read. Nguyen has such a way with language, I'm glad I discovered her writing through this ARC.

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This review is based on NetGalley ARC provided in exchange for an honest, unbiased opinion.

Overall, I enjoyed the fresh perspective that this book gives into the experience of a Vietnamese immigrant family in America. The poems were raw and emotional in the best possible ways. They were so captivating that I hardly realized that I read this in one sitting.

This is the debut collection of Susan Nguyen, and considering what I read here, I can hardly wait to see what else she creates in the future!

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