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Becoming Ghost: Poetry
The long-awaited sophomore poetry collection by award-winning writer Cathy Linh Che, on familial estrangement, the Vietnam War, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
The follow-up to her acclaimed poetry debut Split, 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. The poetry collection uses persona, speculation, and the golden shovel form as a means of moving Vietnamese voices from the periphery to the center. The speaker’s disownment raises questions about the challenges of using parents as poetic subjects, telling familial stories to a broader public, and the meaning of forgiveness.
The follow-up to her acclaimed poetry debut Split, 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. The poetry collection uses persona, speculation, and the golden shovel form as a means of moving Vietnamese voices from the periphery to the center. The speaker’s disownment raises questions about the challenges of using parents as poetic subjects, telling familial stories to a broader public, and the meaning of forgiveness.
128 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
April 25, 2025
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
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
July 12, 2025
I loved this poem cycle by Cathy Linh Che. She wove together so many different themes: refugee life, family struggles, the different values assigned to boys and girls, even her parents' experiences working as extras for Apocalypse Now. I felt as if Che was offering me all sorts of riches and that I was gathering up as many of them as I could, but was also missing some. This is a book I plane to return to regularly. It will take several more reads for me to absorb it, but even with my incomplete understanding it merits five stars.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via Edelweiss; the opinions are my own.
April 24, 2025
Thank you to Atria Books for the gifted advanced copy.
“We were cast into a film
about our own apocalypse.”
The ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ poems broke me. The interweaving of zombie narratives with the Apocalypse Now filming experience for being cast as extras in a film after living through the Vietnam War was executed extremely well. It’s difficult to share familial stories and experiences and you can feel that in the relationship/absence with the father, mother, siblings and grandmother.
Also, the golden shovel poem “Heart of Darkness” is an essential read.
This is a really moving collection that I suggest giving a read through. I’m not the best at uncovering details within poetry but I could still feel the emotion that went into this collection.
“We were cast into a film
about our own apocalypse.”
The ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ poems broke me. The interweaving of zombie narratives with the Apocalypse Now filming experience for being cast as extras in a film after living through the Vietnam War was executed extremely well. It’s difficult to share familial stories and experiences and you can feel that in the relationship/absence with the father, mother, siblings and grandmother.
Also, the golden shovel poem “Heart of Darkness” is an essential read.
This is a really moving collection that I suggest giving a read through. I’m not the best at uncovering details within poetry but I could still feel the emotion that went into this collection.
July 27, 2025
A great book of poetry. Cathy Linh Che gives us so much about her and her family’s feelings about the Vietnam War and their refugee and further status in this short book of poetry.
How can anyone “love the smell of napalm?”
Her family were extras in Coppola’s film:
We’d survived a war
Only to be cast into the margins
Of our own story.
She speaks with her parents’ voices too. The pain is never over.
She thinks of the genocide in Gaza, too. And now in Gaza like in Vietnam we watch images and cannot stop the killing and ravaging.
I will never forget a woman I met in Hanoi asking me pointedly. (Her parents disabled and suffering because of the war)—why couldn’t you do more to stop the war?
How can anyone “love the smell of napalm?”
Her family were extras in Coppola’s film:
We’d survived a war
Only to be cast into the margins
Of our own story.
She speaks with her parents’ voices too. The pain is never over.
She thinks of the genocide in Gaza, too. And now in Gaza like in Vietnam we watch images and cannot stop the killing and ravaging.
I will never forget a woman I met in Hanoi asking me pointedly. (Her parents disabled and suffering because of the war)—why couldn’t you do more to stop the war?
March 4, 2025
Analyzing and interpreting poems has never been my forte. Therefore, I struggled with a lot of these poems and the switching of narrators and perspectives. Despite how I struggled with some of these poems, I do find them beautiful and meaningful. I especially appreciate the author’s interweaving of her own life story and her parents as background characters in Apocalypse Now. However, I do wish the author provided more background or context to unpack her poems.
*** We didn’t have lines, we were ‘extras.’ We’d survived a war to be case into the margins of our own story.***
*** We didn’t have lines, we were ‘extras.’ We’d survived a war to be case into the margins of our own story.***
June 6, 2025
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!
Thank you to the publisher, Washington Square Press, for an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions shared in this review are my own!
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!
Thank you to the publisher, Washington Square Press, for an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions shared in this review are my own!
November 20, 2025
Lyrical and moving, every word is in its right place. Language dances here like a Tiana Clark book and the refugee narrative in a time of war is reminiscent of Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic. A quick and necessary indulgence for language lovers.
July 31, 2025
once i dreamt i was swallowed by a snake / the snake was an immigrant household
cô cathy has an enormous brain, i love being vietnamese even tho we're all fucked up
cô cathy has an enormous brain, i love being vietnamese even tho we're all fucked up
February 6, 2025
4 I was just having a conversation with a friend about the historical elements behind pain and suffering being used for entertainment. Coming across this collection, I felt like it not only tackled that subject but added extra layers to the conversation. This book felt deeply personal—there’s something profoundly powerful about taking a deeper look into our parents, their journeys, their suffering, and what that leaves us with. I especially appreciated the parallels the poetry creates and the deeper contemplation of erasure—who that erasure is ultimately for.
It was deeply saddening to read about how the poet’s parents escaped so much, only to have their darkest experiences used for the enjoyment of white audiences. It’s even more unsettling to know that this is a movie so many people reference as a favorite, a film held in high regard while disregarding the real people whose lives were pushed into the background, turned into caricatures, or silenced altogether. You can really feel the distance between parent and child in these poems, but also the process of understanding, forgiving, and centering. The poet acts as a director of her own, creating a space for her parents to exist beyond an outside narrative—placing them, finally, at the forefront of their own experiences.
Thank you to Netgalley &Washington Square Press for this egalley.
It was deeply saddening to read about how the poet’s parents escaped so much, only to have their darkest experiences used for the enjoyment of white audiences. It’s even more unsettling to know that this is a movie so many people reference as a favorite, a film held in high regard while disregarding the real people whose lives were pushed into the background, turned into caricatures, or silenced altogether. You can really feel the distance between parent and child in these poems, but also the process of understanding, forgiving, and centering. The poet acts as a director of her own, creating a space for her parents to exist beyond an outside narrative—placing them, finally, at the forefront of their own experiences.
Thank you to Netgalley &Washington Square Press for this egalley.
March 9, 2025
So glad I had the opportunity to read this collection of poetry. I have been long tired of Asian American poets/authors who tell the same "outsider/insider/perpetual foreigner" narrative without additional critical thought on (U.S.) imperialism and ways its affects all peoples globally. I was very intrigued by the poems in this collection for the storyweaving as well as detailed intricacies through changing of perspectives and POV that highlighted the aforementioned critical thought. I will definitely be returning to this to re-read multiple times and I'm sure I'll find something different with each read.
Thank you Maudee Genao and Atria Books for an ARC
Notable quotes and poems:
'They asked me to follow
the script.
My death written
before I was born.' -- Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Walking Dead
'There's a silhouette where
my family will fit. The story I trim
with scissors. My father I cut to scraps.' -- Cargo
"Q&A"
"July is Watermelon Season"
"Dear Child of the Wind"
Thank you Maudee Genao and Atria Books for an ARC
Notable quotes and poems:
'They asked me to follow
the script.
My death written
before I was born.' -- Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Walking Dead
'There's a silhouette where
my family will fit. The story I trim
with scissors. My father I cut to scraps.' -- Cargo
"Q&A"
"July is Watermelon Season"
"Dear Child of the Wind"
February 22, 2025
A stunning poetry collection using various forms of prose to walk through the author’s parents’ experiences as refugees. Lots of one-liners that punch you in the gut and make you want to hold your family and culture closer. Poetry like this is so important when we find ourselves in an unsteady or scary political environment, and I would encourage people to read with both the past and future in mind.
February 4, 2025
A melancholic and candid collection of poems about the author’s parents’ experience with the Vietnam war and then subsequently being in extras in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, becoming background characters in a fictionalized version of their own history - in a sense, Becoming Ghost in their own stories.
I’m not familiar with the movie Apocalypse Now or the references to Cathy Linh Che’s previous poetry work, but I found each poem to be introspective, reflective, evocative, and emotional. There’s a lot of clever interplay between the parents’ flashbacks of the war and immigration and their experiences working on the movie set, weaving in screenplay references too. I thought it was fascinating how by publishing this work and highlighting the parts her parents were in, they become the main characters rather than continuing to be relegated to background characters.
Che’s structuring of the poems is rather unusual but I appreciate the fluidity, cadence and rhythm of the poems as well as the vivid imagery of a dark history. For instance, the poetry collection is sectioned into multiple parts. From there, some of the poems’ titles have the same titular header but a different subheading. The poem title Becoming Ghost also repeats throughout the collection. I think this would need deeper analysis and I would be interested in listening to a podcast or interview about the author’s intentions.
All in all, a profound and touching tribute to her parents and acknowledgement of their hardships.
Special thanks to Atria Books, Washington Square Press, and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest, independent review.
I’m not familiar with the movie Apocalypse Now or the references to Cathy Linh Che’s previous poetry work, but I found each poem to be introspective, reflective, evocative, and emotional. There’s a lot of clever interplay between the parents’ flashbacks of the war and immigration and their experiences working on the movie set, weaving in screenplay references too. I thought it was fascinating how by publishing this work and highlighting the parts her parents were in, they become the main characters rather than continuing to be relegated to background characters.
Che’s structuring of the poems is rather unusual but I appreciate the fluidity, cadence and rhythm of the poems as well as the vivid imagery of a dark history. For instance, the poetry collection is sectioned into multiple parts. From there, some of the poems’ titles have the same titular header but a different subheading. The poem title Becoming Ghost also repeats throughout the collection. I think this would need deeper analysis and I would be interested in listening to a podcast or interview about the author’s intentions.
All in all, a profound and touching tribute to her parents and acknowledgement of their hardships.
Special thanks to Atria Books, Washington Square Press, and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest, independent review.
December 23, 2025
A lot of this collection revolves around the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, which I have not seen. All of the movie allusions and elements in the poems didn't hold much meaning for me as a result. What did come through was the meditation on filming lives (who gets to tell other people's stories and how?) and casting Vietnamese people in refugee camps as extras in the movie (Che's parents themselves were cast as extras) in problematic ways.
I do love the form of the golden shovel (ending each line with a word from an external poem or text), though I read this collection on my Kindle so the lines weren't formatted well enough for me to pick up on the golden shovel inspirations. That's my fault for choosing the format I did. The choice to use a highly intertextual form connected to Che's focus on influences and retellings/reimaginings.
The parts of this collection that are about heritage and the experiences of Che's family members and ancestors as a result of the Vietnam War and its ravages were the most intimate.
It seems to me that Che has thought long and hard about the unfolding of the Vietnam War, including its causes and legacies, and is self-assured in her critique of what went down on a national scale and also on a familial one. There's a political commentary thru line in the collection that didn't personally resonate (as I was not alive during the war and have no closeness to it otherwise) but that was compelling in its forcefulness and comparisons to today's conflicts (like Gaza).
I do love the form of the golden shovel (ending each line with a word from an external poem or text), though I read this collection on my Kindle so the lines weren't formatted well enough for me to pick up on the golden shovel inspirations. That's my fault for choosing the format I did. The choice to use a highly intertextual form connected to Che's focus on influences and retellings/reimaginings.
The parts of this collection that are about heritage and the experiences of Che's family members and ancestors as a result of the Vietnam War and its ravages were the most intimate.
It seems to me that Che has thought long and hard about the unfolding of the Vietnam War, including its causes and legacies, and is self-assured in her critique of what went down on a national scale and also on a familial one. There's a political commentary thru line in the collection that didn't personally resonate (as I was not alive during the war and have no closeness to it otherwise) but that was compelling in its forcefulness and comparisons to today's conflicts (like Gaza).
October 3, 2025
really beautiful collection - something I wish my intro to poetry teacher had made us read instead of generic poems by old white guys. only realized what the golden shovel format was halfway through class which was a big revelation! fantastic motifs and themes throughout (zombie apocalypse, bruised fruit, bombings, etc). took me a longer time than I thought to get through it but really worth it.
July 18, 2025
This was insanely good. Cathy you’re brilliant. So many layers of the act of self versus what it takes to access the self. Performance weaved with sorrow with joy with regret ugh so so good
March 22, 2025
Becoming Ghost by Cathy Linh Che is a poetry collection that explores the fracturing of family, using form, metaphor and point of view. From the book’s summary: “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.” Without a strong hold of the Coppola film, some of this reference was lost on me, but Che builds a larger thread about the impact of immigration and the subsequent trauma, that I was engaged.
Poems in the collection move from the narrator to the parents’ point of view, and these poems share some of the most difficult and tender moments. In the poem “Bomb that tree line back about a hundred yards. Give me room to breathe,” which uses the golden shovel form, Che writes: “Daughter, I think you embellish what you don’t know. A bomb/ is nothing like a slammed door. That/ is just your poetic imagination. Have you seen a tree / disappear into flames? That’s what a bomb can do. I taught you, line/ by line, my own poetry.” In that same poem, the parent voice questions if the daughter is afraid of her, questions how the daughter can write her story without being in conversation with her. These poems are filled with moments like this, moments that reach for each other as much as they push away. These poems ask for connection while claiming betrayal.
At the end of three collection, Che shares the inspirations and the form choices in an end note that makes many of the connections I wish I had at the beginning. It adds power to each of her choices.
Poems in the collection move from the narrator to the parents’ point of view, and these poems share some of the most difficult and tender moments. In the poem “Bomb that tree line back about a hundred yards. Give me room to breathe,” which uses the golden shovel form, Che writes: “Daughter, I think you embellish what you don’t know. A bomb/ is nothing like a slammed door. That/ is just your poetic imagination. Have you seen a tree / disappear into flames? That’s what a bomb can do. I taught you, line/ by line, my own poetry.” In that same poem, the parent voice questions if the daughter is afraid of her, questions how the daughter can write her story without being in conversation with her. These poems are filled with moments like this, moments that reach for each other as much as they push away. These poems ask for connection while claiming betrayal.
At the end of three collection, Che shares the inspirations and the form choices in an end note that makes many of the connections I wish I had at the beginning. It adds power to each of her choices.
October 28, 2025
The author's parents were in a Philippine refugee camp after the Vietnam War--and were cast as extra's in Apocalypse Now. Many of these poems look at that--the sadness, the difficulty, the absurdity of using actual refugees just years removed as extras in your moving. Forcing them to re-live those years.
This book was a fascinating look at all that followed that choice to take those jobs--to relive the fear, but to be paid so well (and that was what made the decision possible), money that enabled their lives in the US. To then see that movie at an American theater. It is so absurd as to be nearly unbelievable. Yet there it is.
"We'd survived a war
to be cast into the margins
of our own story."
This book was a fascinating look at all that followed that choice to take those jobs--to relive the fear, but to be paid so well (and that was what made the decision possible), money that enabled their lives in the US. To then see that movie at an American theater. It is so absurd as to be nearly unbelievable. Yet there it is.
"We'd survived a war
to be cast into the margins
of our own story."
March 12, 2025
This collection is built around the surreal emotionality of the author's parents having both lived through the war in Vietnam and also having served as extras in the film, Apocalypse Now. [For those unfamiliar, Apocalypse Now was a Francis Ford Copp0la film based loosely (and partially) on Joseph Conrad's novel,Heart of Darkness. The film follows a military officer sent upriver to assassinate a rogue Special Operations colonel during the Vietnam War, and shows the war from various perspectives as the would-be assassin travels through the country to complete his mission.]
At times, the poems read like a poem-shaped biography, but that's not all there is to the book. There are points that imagery and language are used to shoot beyond a mere telling of events, in order to create emotional resonance with the core strangeness of living through a traumatic event only to portray a background individual (someone like one's own past self) in a fictional retelling of events based on those through which one lived.
The poetic forms vary somewhat, though all within the modern, free verse style. Most notably, the author uses the golden shovel approach of Terrence Hayes extensively.
This collection grabbed me both with its clever language and its thought-provoking central premise. I'd highly recommend it for readers of poetry.
At times, the poems read like a poem-shaped biography, but that's not all there is to the book. There are points that imagery and language are used to shoot beyond a mere telling of events, in order to create emotional resonance with the core strangeness of living through a traumatic event only to portray a background individual (someone like one's own past self) in a fictional retelling of events based on those through which one lived.
The poetic forms vary somewhat, though all within the modern, free verse style. Most notably, the author uses the golden shovel approach of Terrence Hayes extensively.
This collection grabbed me both with its clever language and its thought-provoking central premise. I'd highly recommend it for readers of poetry.
September 8, 2025
Once this poetry collection came into focus, you notice the finite details within the scope of being long forgotten. Blending into the background of every story.
What these poems did was bring Vietnamese voices to the forefront, making their stories the main event. It unearths questions and realizes familial trauma. It’s a quest and a plead for one’s own ability to forgive.
It’s a great narrative of memory, twisted to bring forth buried voices.
[thank you @atriabooks @washingtonsquarepress @cathylinhche for this gifted copy!]
What these poems did was bring Vietnamese voices to the forefront, making their stories the main event. It unearths questions and realizes familial trauma. It’s a quest and a plead for one’s own ability to forgive.
It’s a great narrative of memory, twisted to bring forth buried voices.
[thank you @atriabooks @washingtonsquarepress @cathylinhche for this gifted copy!]
Read
June 11, 2025Trying to get more into poetry. I do appreciate and prefer this type of writing. The beauty of words. The work it takes for us to understand. It also displays the limitations of language and the difficulty translating the sound of the soul.
April 14, 2025
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.
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.
March 19, 2025
3.5/5 stars
Thank you NetGalley and Washington Square Press for the ARC!
Becoming Ghost is a poetry collection discussing the author’s parents’ experiences as refugees from the Vietnam War.
I’ll be honest, this was a collection that I just didn’t understand. I was confused and lost through most of the book. It wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t for me.
For starters, I didn’t have context for approximately 80% of the book. I don’t know anything about Che or her family, apart from the information given in this book. And I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now, which is referenced several times throughout the collection (Che’s parents were extras in the film).
In addition, the POV changes between Che and her parents with reckless abandon and no indication of a POV change, so I was usually halfway through a poem before I figured out who was narrating (and there were times I didn’t even know who was narrating).
But I did enjoy the perspective of Che writing from the POV of her (estranged) parents. It was an interesting way to tell the story. Che also pointed out some interesting parallels between the Vietnam War and the Palestinian genocide as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
This collection will be perfect for some readers. Unfortunately, it was not for me.
CW: child abuse (physical & emotional); PTSD; Vietnam War; genocide; child death; racism
Thank you NetGalley and Washington Square Press for the ARC!
Becoming Ghost is a poetry collection discussing the author’s parents’ experiences as refugees from the Vietnam War.
I’ll be honest, this was a collection that I just didn’t understand. I was confused and lost through most of the book. It wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t for me.
For starters, I didn’t have context for approximately 80% of the book. I don’t know anything about Che or her family, apart from the information given in this book. And I’ve never seen Apocalypse Now, which is referenced several times throughout the collection (Che’s parents were extras in the film).
In addition, the POV changes between Che and her parents with reckless abandon and no indication of a POV change, so I was usually halfway through a poem before I figured out who was narrating (and there were times I didn’t even know who was narrating).
But I did enjoy the perspective of Che writing from the POV of her (estranged) parents. It was an interesting way to tell the story. Che also pointed out some interesting parallels between the Vietnam War and the Palestinian genocide as well as the COVID-19 pandemic.
This collection will be perfect for some readers. Unfortunately, it was not for me.
CW: child abuse (physical & emotional); PTSD; Vietnam War; genocide; child death; racism
March 26, 2025
I was so pleased by the ease with which I connected to Cathy’s words. But wow, I was made to face my ignorance.
How had I never thought about the Vietnamese extras in movies on the Vietnam war? I know how, there’s not an equivalent for basic white girls so it was never on my radar, never something that organically popped into my head as a concern.
I’m not proud of that & am so grateful for this reality check. It’s art like this that can—and will—aid in the flourish of empathy and appreciation for marginalized groups, ideally leading to actual changes in behavior and perception.
The US is LUCKY to be made up of people from a plethora of different backgrounds, & this collection highlights that beautifully too.
If I’m being transparent, their pointing out gaps in my knowledge was what I enjoyed most of all. Should that be on the author to do? No, of course not. This is info I’d like to think I’d have questioned on my own eventually. But maybe I wouldn’t have?
I’m rambling, these topics can be a bit uncomfy. And I think that’s the point.
Get uncomfy. Sit in that feeling, familiarize yourself with it. Then do better.
Thank you bunches to Washington Square Press, Atria, Cathy Linh Che & NetGalley for both the digital and physical ARCs of this gorgeous collection, available 4/29.
How had I never thought about the Vietnamese extras in movies on the Vietnam war? I know how, there’s not an equivalent for basic white girls so it was never on my radar, never something that organically popped into my head as a concern.
I’m not proud of that & am so grateful for this reality check. It’s art like this that can—and will—aid in the flourish of empathy and appreciation for marginalized groups, ideally leading to actual changes in behavior and perception.
The US is LUCKY to be made up of people from a plethora of different backgrounds, & this collection highlights that beautifully too.
If I’m being transparent, their pointing out gaps in my knowledge was what I enjoyed most of all. Should that be on the author to do? No, of course not. This is info I’d like to think I’d have questioned on my own eventually. But maybe I wouldn’t have?
I’m rambling, these topics can be a bit uncomfy. And I think that’s the point.
Get uncomfy. Sit in that feeling, familiarize yourself with it. Then do better.
Thank you bunches to Washington Square Press, Atria, Cathy Linh Che & NetGalley for both the digital and physical ARCs of this gorgeous collection, available 4/29.
November 15, 2025
We arrow our way through the present. Sometimes it’s all we have.
The tectonic universe shifts, and we are forced to move like birds fleeing the seasons. I will not move, not today.
What moves through me is just wind and your breath. I hold it as we march toward our own lives, toward a stillness quilted with leaves.
A poetry collection that addresses many facets of the immigrant experience including a theme of the victims of a war playing extras in a movie about that war, like people back then didn’t even try to think of the morality of it, the inhumanity of it. Did they ask survivors of the atomic bomb in Japan to play themselves in WWII movies? Such thought-provoking poems that use spare language and brief snippets to illustrate the point.
Becoming Ghost
In Sài Gòn, I wore my áo dài sidesaddle on my husband’s xe Honda, the atmosphere a slurry of exhaust and humidity. My hair dragged like a black curtain through traffic. Engines riled, multiplying. Already, it’s early. Here, Coppola dresses down, shirtless, less fancy director, more man of the people gone jungle wild. Gray waves zipper along the shore. Coppola says, I want it to smell like the real thing. I want to tell him, The real thing is a landscape of work and death, the names of our ancestors slack in our mouths, just the art of loving your family line enough to reproduce it.
The tectonic universe shifts, and we are forced to move like birds fleeing the seasons. I will not move, not today.
What moves through me is just wind and your breath. I hold it as we march toward our own lives, toward a stillness quilted with leaves.
A poetry collection that addresses many facets of the immigrant experience including a theme of the victims of a war playing extras in a movie about that war, like people back then didn’t even try to think of the morality of it, the inhumanity of it. Did they ask survivors of the atomic bomb in Japan to play themselves in WWII movies? Such thought-provoking poems that use spare language and brief snippets to illustrate the point.
Becoming Ghost
In Sài Gòn, I wore my áo dài sidesaddle on my husband’s xe Honda, the atmosphere a slurry of exhaust and humidity. My hair dragged like a black curtain through traffic. Engines riled, multiplying. Already, it’s early. Here, Coppola dresses down, shirtless, less fancy director, more man of the people gone jungle wild. Gray waves zipper along the shore. Coppola says, I want it to smell like the real thing. I want to tell him, The real thing is a landscape of work and death, the names of our ancestors slack in our mouths, just the art of loving your family line enough to reproduce it.
March 11, 2025
Love love love the use of the golden shovel form, that scratched my brain reaaalll good (shoutout to poet Terrance Hayes, the first to do it with Gwendolyn Brooks' 'We Real Cool", one of my favorite poems).
There's a quote I like that's along the lines of, "there's power in clear-eyed self-restraint", and I think that really applies here. When an artist of any kind gives themselves parameters or a form to work within, and they can achieve something that doesn't feel gimmicky or bogged down by the guardrails, it's such a triumph.
The poem structures are varied and, dare I say, playful?? despite the heavy subject matter.
This stood out to me because it reads like a poetry book rather than a collection of poems, if that makes sense. The poems build to tell a singular, cohesive story, a family history, and that made "Becoming Ghost" feel propulsive in the best way.
My first time reading Cathy Linh Che's work, and I'll be on the lookout for more!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
There's a quote I like that's along the lines of, "there's power in clear-eyed self-restraint", and I think that really applies here. When an artist of any kind gives themselves parameters or a form to work within, and they can achieve something that doesn't feel gimmicky or bogged down by the guardrails, it's such a triumph.
The poem structures are varied and, dare I say, playful?? despite the heavy subject matter.
This stood out to me because it reads like a poetry book rather than a collection of poems, if that makes sense. The poems build to tell a singular, cohesive story, a family history, and that made "Becoming Ghost" feel propulsive in the best way.
My first time reading Cathy Linh Che's work, and I'll be on the lookout for more!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.
June 1, 2025
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.)
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.)
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February 12, 2025Thank you to NetGalley & Washington Square Press for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review &/or promotion. // { 𝐍/𝐀 } • No star rating due to this being a non-fiction work; full review to come.
A powerfully melancholic and deeply candid collection of poems that examines, among other things, how the choices & journeys experienced by our parents impact us as their children, and how all of those moments - all of the things said or left unsaid - ultimately serve to shape not only our own lives, but how we are later able to [hopefully] process and reflect back on the complexities found in the relationship we have with our parents also and in a meaningful/constructive way.
A powerfully melancholic and deeply candid collection of poems that examines, among other things, how the choices & journeys experienced by our parents impact us as their children, and how all of those moments - all of the things said or left unsaid - ultimately serve to shape not only our own lives, but how we are later able to [hopefully] process and reflect back on the complexities found in the relationship we have with our parents also and in a meaningful/constructive way.
Read
April 29, 2025Please 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.
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.
November 1, 2025
from Live-Stream
Our dead on screen,
a freeze, a scroll.
Journalists hungry,
but reporting.
I weigh my eating
at a restaurant
against helping
someone else eat.
Sometimes,
I stay home. Sometimes,
I watch my credit
balloon, collect
reading fees and jurying,
banking this against
a zero interest card
that will charge 22%
come June. I have read
the budget proposal,
the cost of bombing
five countries,
divestment,
collapsing tourism,
start-up capital withering,
credit downgrade.
I join your risk
so that you
are less alone.
Turn
the camera,
back and forth.
I write to yo
from the afterlife
of near-annihilation. (75)
Our dead on screen,
a freeze, a scroll.
Journalists hungry,
but reporting.
I weigh my eating
at a restaurant
against helping
someone else eat.
Sometimes,
I stay home. Sometimes,
I watch my credit
balloon, collect
reading fees and jurying,
banking this against
a zero interest card
that will charge 22%
come June. I have read
the budget proposal,
the cost of bombing
five countries,
divestment,
collapsing tourism,
start-up capital withering,
credit downgrade.
I join your risk
so that you
are less alone.
Turn
the camera,
back and forth.
I write to yo
from the afterlife
of near-annihilation. (75)
December 3, 2025
A collection of poems about identity, immigration, family, grief, and loss.
from Becoming Ghost: "I stand behind a one-way mirror. / My father sits in a room / interrogating himself. // Bright bulb shining / like the idea / of a daughter."
from Becoming Ghost: "The real thing // is a landscape / of work and death, // the names of our ancestors / slack in our mouths, // just the art of loving / your family line enough // to reproduce it."
from Dear America: "My father, too, with his dark hands. / He lived in Virginia, aviator glasses, / a Marlon Brando. America, his dream. // Who made him love white faces, / wish his children's futures / as flags of surrender?"
from Becoming Ghost: "I stand behind a one-way mirror. / My father sits in a room / interrogating himself. // Bright bulb shining / like the idea / of a daughter."
from Becoming Ghost: "The real thing // is a landscape / of work and death, // the names of our ancestors / slack in our mouths, // just the art of loving / your family line enough // to reproduce it."
from Dear America: "My father, too, with his dark hands. / He lived in Virginia, aviator glasses, / a Marlon Brando. America, his dream. // Who made him love white faces, / wish his children's futures / as flags of surrender?"
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