This collection powerfully interrogates the politics of narrative ownership, particularly when it comes to war, trauma, and legacy. It asks a fundamental question: Who has the right to shape collective memory, and whose voices are silenced in the process? The often-quoted phrase “history is written by the victors” takes on new meaning in our digital, globalized age, where dominant Western narratives are increasingly challenged by personal, lived experiences from those historically pushed to the margins.

At its heart, this is a deeply personal and poetic account of a family whose life was irrevocably shaped by the Vietnam War. But more than that, it is a reckoning with the ghosts of imperialism and exploitation — both during the war and in the aftermath. The poet explores these intergenerational wounds with an urgency to understand, often by shifting perspectives between her own voice and those of her parents. Through this, we witness not only what they endured, but how their pain was later commodified for Western consumption. A particularly powerful thread running through the collection is its critical engagement with Apocalypse Now, a film celebrated by many in the West yet deeply troubling in its portrayal of the Vietnamese people and their trauma. The poet contrasts her parents’ real suffering with the film’s fictionalized, stylized violence — reminding us of the devastating consequences when trauma is aestheticized and repackaged for entertainment.

Another aspect of this collection that stood out to me was its experimentation. The poet blends narrative, poetry, and even screenplay snippets to blur the line between truth and performance, trauma and reenactment. At times, Cathy Linh Che serves as an acting director — framing, cutting, and spotlighting moments that have long gone unseen. She creates a space for her parents to exist not as archetypes or footnotes, but as fully realized individuals at the center of their own narrative. In the afterword, she reflects on her deliberate choice of structure as a way to reclaim authorship over her family’s story — to turn the camera around and offer a more truthful representation than that of the infamous renderings of the Vietnam War from the Western perspective. The poetic techniques utilized here also capture the disorienting experience of intergenerational trauma: the distance between parent and child, the gaps in understanding, and the quiet work of healing and forgiveness.

While I came to this collection with limited knowledge of Apocalypse Now and an arguably minimal understanding of the Vietnam War, Cathy Linh Che guided me with clarity and purpose through such a complex public and personal history. That said, some historical or cultural context may be necessary for readers unfamiliar with these events to fully grasp the nuances. Even so, this collection offers a profound reflection on legacy, memory, and reclamation — and invites us to consider how we engage with stories that are not our own. My favorite kinds of poetry collections are the ones that teach me something new about the world around me, others' experiences, or lead me to further research about something I may have read. This one ticks all those boxes for me and I hope can do the same for other readers!

Don't mistake this slim volume for light fare—it's a moving gut-punch of a collection. I am trying to read more poetry, even though I consider it challenging (because I consider it challenging?) In that vein, I requested this book from NetGalley, and they obliged—thank you! Cathy Linh Che's poems are stunning in their economy, and offer an intimate glimpse into her family's fraught history. I recommend this to poetry lovers and especially those less-inclined.

BECOMING GHOST by Cathy Linh Che is a heartfelt journey through family trauma in the aftermath of war. Using the medium of poetry, including multiple instances of golden shovels (a new-to-me form), Che explores immigration, war, Apocalypse Now (her parents were cast as extras while they were refugees), and more. Their experiences are made all the more vivid by family photos inserted at the start of each new section.

Throughout, Che wrestles with guilt over adopting her parents’ voices for her poetry (“You lock yourself in your room / and write my story.”). And at intervals, she also struggles with the nuance of America, a country boasting of new opportunities, but “a horizon of false equality.”

This is a slim volume packed with weighty ideas.

(Thank you to Atria Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.)

Thank you to Net Galley and Atria Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Having read her children's book, I didn't know that the author was a poet and was interested. The poems go deep into the memory and myths of the Vietnam War, her parents' retraumatizing experience of being extras in Apocalypse Now when her family were refugees, her parents' experience and the lingering effects that affect her relationship with her parents. In this book, she honors her family's experience in Vietnam and coming to the US even though her relationships are strained and painful with her parents. The poetry is beautiful and heartbreaking.

lovely poems based on some amazing family stories, especialy the series based on the true story of her parents being extras in Apoclypse Now when they were refugees from vietnam

A remarkable collection centered around Cathy Linh Che's parents' experience reenacting their trauma as Vietnam War refugees while cast as extras in the film Apocalypse Now. Such a unique and powerful approach to storytelling.

‘Becoming Ghost’ is told from a unique perspective. It's about the struggles of first generation Vietnamese Americans (the author’s parents) and she sometimes does it from her perspective. This fresh aspect that this technique brings to such a narrative really inspired me!

I found beauty in each and every poem.. The pain bleeding through the pages - it's heart-wrenching… But in these words, we find golden nuggets of hope, calming words in so much chaos. The author’s thoughts are amazingly crafted into verse. I absolutely loved this book!!

That was so intelligently done, the parallels made between apocalypse now and the walking dead to the experience of fleeing the Veitnam War as refugees was brilliant.

I loved this.

Thank you netgalley and Atria books for this copy in exchange for an honest review. Just stunning.

Becoming Ghost: Poetry by Cathy Linh Che
About Becoming Ghost: Becoming Ghost documents Cathy Linh Che’s parents’ experiences as refugees who escaped the Vietnam War and then were cast as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now, placing them at the margins of their own story.

This is one of my favorite poetry collections that I’ve ever read. I LOVED how Cathy Linh Che used elements of speculative fiction to explore how Apocalypse Now could have been different, family relationships and estrangement, immigration, and the impact of the Vietnam War (before, during, and after). I really enjoyed the themes of grief and forgiveness that were interwoven.

These poems were heartbreaking, beautiful, hopeful, and challenging!

CWs:
Graphic: War, Child abuse, Mental illness
Moderate: Genocide, Emotional abuse, Child death
Minor: Xenophobia

Thank you Atria Books and Washington Square Press and Netgalley for the ARC

This was a fantastic work of poetry. While the bookstore I work at doesn't sell poetry, I was really happy I got to read this collection and do think that many would relate to a lot of the different poems that there was to offer. It reminded me why I like poetry so much.

Please note that I do not rate poetry, memoirs or nonfiction.

I feel like I am not the right crowd for this poetry book. I had no relation to any of the references made in this collection. I was a bit lost at the back and forth of the point of views. I also felt like the collection was trying to be linear in timeline of events, but I was also left confused as to the timeline of events and what was real and implied.

The writing is beautiful and the poetry was heartfelt. I believe with the right audience this collection would be outstanding. I am just not that audience.

thank you to Atria for the advanced copy of this collection.

As someone who isn’t formally trained in poetry, I appreciate it for the intimate window it offers into a writer’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Becoming Ghost is exactly that: a collection filled with vulnerability and raw emotion. Each poem feels deeply personal, offering pieces of memory, grief, and survival. I had never encountered the “golden shovel” form before and took the time to research it while reading. Understanding this structure added an even deeper layer of meaning to the collection, making the experience even more powerful. I thoroughly enjoyed Becoming Ghost and am looking forward to reading more of Cathy Linh Che’s work.

National Poetry Month 2025 #3

Vietnam Book and Reading Culture Day 2025 #5

I. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

We are not your entertainment. Stop using us.

The misogyny, while not surprising, is triggering.

Here for the Steven Yeun mention 🥵

You'd become less than
a feeling, the way every lover
I've known no longer hurts me.

I'm so sick of history
dragging behind me.
I don't want to be sad.

To love my father
is to love his wounds.

II. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

We'd survived a war
to be cast into the margins
of our own story.

To the viewer,
I was dead.
I felt dead.

Not that the first set of poems wasn't depressing, because it was, but this was depressing.

III. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I want to tell you a story
of my body. I did not believe
myself to be beautiful.

Well, that cut.

People are so rude to immigrants. When their families were once immigrants. Have a little respect.

If I had a penny for every time a white man said, "Ni hao," to me, I'd be rich.

My mother says, In Vietnam,
a life means so little.
What does a life mean in America?

Free Palestine

IV. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Plants don't run off
the way daughters do.

I wait to be reanimated.
Love is like that—
resurrecting you from the dead.

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Washington Square Press

Heart wrenching beautifully written poetry .Each poem is mesmerizing tears at your thoughts your soul.Another brilliant book of poetry by Cathy Linh Che.#NetGalley #atria

Thanks to NetGalley & Atria for the ARC!

Cathy Linh Che’s "Becoming Ghost" is a sparse, severe, and startling collection of poetry about the author’s refugee parents playing extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s "Apocalypse Now."

The challenge with anti-war poetry is that the form often implicitly romanticizes violence—beautiful language wasted on ugly things. Che resists this impulse by using the barest lexicon possible, employing bluntness to razor-sharp effect. It’s simply impossible for an American reader to deny their complicity by hiding behind the protection of artistic interpretation.

Much of the book is spent upending saccharine, idealized refugee narratives. In “Los Angeles, Manila, Đà Nẵng,” the speaker explicitly rejects the language of metaphor when describing a woman “who will carry bricks for the rest of her life”—refugees are real people, and they deserve the dignity of being seen as just people.

In “In the kitchen, recounting,” we read what could be considered the book’s thesis:

"She asks for my story [private].
She asks for my story [public]."

"Becoming Ghost" constantly wrestles with who narrativizes a body under attack, often through polyvocal slippage. Does the public really deserve the truth? Are Americans even entitled to having someone shatter their myth of unquestioned goodness?


Despite these difficult, abstract questions, the intimate, familial focus of Che’s writing animates the whole collection. This is primarily for and about her parents.

"Apocalypse Now" looms over the book as an extension of the violence against Vietnamese people, with the speaker repeatedly noting how dehumanizing conditions on set were justified with financial restitution. The speaker’s parents collapse into tokens of violence—extras with their humanity made extraneous. What does one do with the knowledge that their parents were paid more to re-enact their own destruction than they were to work in the US? What does it mean that they were more valued as receptacles for violence?

Using the movie as detritus, Che plucks words from its script to form the foundation of poems that critique it and American violence. “Heart of Darkness” is a particularly pointed interrogation of the word “war” itself, as the speaker draws attention to how it neuters the reality of what’s really happening—genocide. By the time we see it named as such late in the collection, it feels like an unquestionable argument.

"Becoming Ghost" is nothing short of a masterpiece, and Cathy Linh Che demonstrates an incredible attention to the voices that speak when we recognize they don’t speak for us. I’m grateful and excited to revisit this one.

This was an evocative and powerful collection, drawing on multiple interwoven themes and unique forms. While it is not a novel-in-verse, BECOMING GHOST told a story from multiple angles, and I found myself reading it much more quickly than I usually do when working my way through a poetry collection. This is one I’ll go back to and study in greater detail.

A punch in the gut, slap in the face collection. Each poem hits something deep inside of you. It’s emotional and leaves you feeling mournful.
I found 4 or 5 poems slightly lacking, hence the 3 star rating, but I still very much enjoyed and will still be reading more from this author in the future.

Becoming Ghost is a collection of poems about the author’s parents’ experiences during the Vietnam War. I sometimes find it hard to analyze or interpret poetry, and this is one of those books for me. I read it in one sitting because the writing is beautiful, powerful, and emotional. There have been a few poems or lines that have really stayed in my mind. Though I did find it difficult with how the poems would change povs or perspectives.

I read the book in almost one sitting, mesmerized by her memories of her family in Vietnam and in the Phillippines where they were temporarily in a refugee camp, and in particular poems about her father, whose home movies played a large role in the family history.

Though written as poems, the book was easy to read, and very revealing about her thoughts about her family history and about the war in Vietnam, as well as the depiction of the war in Coppola's movie, Apocalypse Now.

This is a very melancholic collection about family and the violence that is out of our control but lingers across times and generations. The interesting story of their parents being extras in Coppola's film and being Vietnam War refugees... it's intense.