Ghost Of

by Diana Khoi Nguyen

Ghost Of elegizes a brother lost via suicide, is a mourning song for the idea of family, a family haunted by ghosts of war, trauma, and history. Nguyen’s debut is not an exorcism or un-haunting of that which haunts, but attuned attention, unidirectional reaching across time, space, and distance to reach loved ones, ancestors, and strangers. By working with, in, and around the photographs that her brother left behind (from which he cut himself out before his death), Nguyen wrestles with what remains: remnants of memory, physical voids, and her family captured around an empty space. Through lyric meditation, Nguyen seeks to bridge the realms of the living with the dead, the past with the present. These poems are checkpoints at the border of a mind, with arms outstretched in bold tenderness.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Grief, Contemporary, Asian American, Memoir, Family

88 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2018

About the author

A poet and multimedia artist, Diana Khoi Nguyen is the author of Root Fractures (2024) and Ghost Of (2018), which was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her video work has been exhibited at the Miller ICA. Nguyen is a MacDowell and Kundiman fellow, and a member of the Vietnamese artist collective, She Who Has No Master(s). She's received an NEA fellowship and awards from the 92Y "Discovery" Poetry and 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery contests. She teaches in the Randolph College Low-Residency MFA and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Reviews

[Jerrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longlisted for the National Book Awards this poetry collection is not just haunting in its words, but also in the images it contains. The collection deals primarily with her deceased brother and the grief and confusion over his loss. She is a multi-media artist, so this book is also filled with family images with the missing brother cut out and poetry shaped to his form. This presents a compelling, emotional read.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of beautifully written and moving poems, many of which revolve around her brother's suicide. Interesting use of poetic space with what looks like shards of text cutting into the pages sometimes used as petals of a flower. As well as creative use of family photographs to underscore the feelings of loss.

[Jenna]

This debut collection, selected by Terrance Hayes for the Omnidawn '16-'17 Open Poetry Book Prize, concerns how a family is disrupted by the death of a beloved young brother. The language is oblique, slippery, but it is strongly suggested that the death was a suicide, possibly involving a car and possibly also involving water (see, for example, this eponymous poem). It is also implied that the death was not entirely unconnected to the family's history as Vietnam War refugees, a link verbalized most explicitly in the poem "The Exodus": "And if you bypassed a war, a war / wouldn't bypass you." This is not poetry of condensation, crystallization, elucidation so much as verse of repetition, accretion, concretion: one particularly effective moment in the text occurs when it is revealed that the dead brother's name was Oliver and that, up until that point, when the poet had been using eel and elver imagery (Google defines elver as "a young eel, especially when undergoing mass migration upriver from the sea" -- the italics are mine), it was in part due to the wordplay inherent in the similarity of elver to Oliver. This is the kind of slow build-up to a revelation that is only possible in the poetry of repetition and accretion, and it is one moment where the technique, rather than baffling or frustrating, profoundly moves.

Perhaps this book's most striking feature is the poet's creative use of visual forms, most apparent in ten poems in the book, five of which are titled "Triptych" and five of which are titled "Gyotaku" -- gyotaku is another word I had to look up in the dictionary: it refers to an old Japanese art form that evolved from when fishermen used to cover the fish they caught with ink, with which they made prints to create a permanent record of what they had caught. All of the "Triptych" and "Gyotaku" poems combine blurred, distorted, cut-up black-and-white family photographs with text formatted in nonstandard ways. Each of the "Triptych" poems follows the same haunting formula: the first "panel" in each triptych is a family group photograph from which the dead brother's likeness has been cut out, leaving a blank; the second "panel" consists of words arranged to fit the shape of the dead brother's deleted silhouette; the third "panel" consists of words arranged around negative space that holds the shape of the dead brother's likeness. In the "Gyotaku" poems, the same deliberately shaped block of text is repeated over and over, like a woodblock print -- in one poem, the "prints" follow one another down the page in the winding shape of a serpent or elver. You sorta have to see it to know what I mean.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diana Khoi Nguyen’s “Ghost Of” is an incredibly well-written and well-constructed scrapbook of lyric poems and photos where the central muse — her brother “Oliver” — is violently cut out. At the center is the haunting disappearance of her brother, gone by suicide, but before doing so he tenderly excised his image from all of the family photos that figure prominently in this collection.

I wonder if Oliver is his real name or if it, too, is wordplay for “all over” as in “it’s all over for that one” or “he made a huge mess all over” or “now that he committed suicide, he has to start this thing called ‘life’ all over.” The poems are shaped into her brother’s silhouette as if Nguyen is attempting to anatomize his tragic absence with pained and urgent remembrance. These poems are uncanny renderings of an invisibility made visible by the sheer will of candor, bemused forms, agility of lexicon, and a voice, wraithlike and noiselessly extravagant. What she gives us, she takes away; nearly impossible transformations transform, for instance:

“When you love someone
more than you’ve ever known you could, it is
a good thing, except for the terrifying

realization that one day there comes
a parting.”

Nguyen writes with haunted precision and wondrous invention. Across these pages, sound makes shapes that, in turn, shape sounds, creating a complex weave in which absence figures as vividly as presence, and in which the absent are, in fact, present – – in the face so neatly cut out of the photographs ... A haunting tribute to those we carry with us. Nguyen’s stunning first collection of poetry and wordsmithery explores the layered losses of displacement, migration, and death in ways that take full responsibility for the particularity of each individual‘s experience. Written with equal parts frankness and compassion, the book radiates a very human generosity throughout.

[Ja'net · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard for me to review this book because, on one hand, I did find it very effective in portraying the madness of grief; on the other hand, I found it so tedious to read that I found myself angry at the book for the majority of time I was slogging through it. As a person struggling with grief and trying to write about it, I just wanted these poems to do more than convince me as a reader that grief is maddening. Additionally, even though the artwork was interesting and haunting, the visual poems started to feel gimmicky really quickly. Knowing beforehand that the poet wrote this book in just thirty days didn't help.

I also think I'm also half-blind now because the print was so small, I could barely see the words on the page. Is that something a reader should take into account before picking up this book? I guess only if that reader cares about being able to read other books after this.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars

I'm not too proud to admit I just didn't get this one. The conceit is interesting, but I felt very emotionally distanced from poems whose subject should, in theory, be emotionally moving. And I found the shape poetry very distracting simply because the way the words were broken up between lines made it hard to read/not a seamless reading experience. Which was probably the point. But I didn't like it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

[L. A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unique and moving. The multi-media photographs and cut outs are striking and serve to make the collection read as a whole, rather than as individual poems grouped together. This is a book that warrants re-reads

[Martin Ott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This haunting memoir in verse explores the death of a brother, identity, and exile in poems that whisper terrifying and beautiful truths, with unforgettable images that weave a tapestry of light and darkness.

https://thepoetryquestion.com/2019/11...

[Nathan Shuherk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow

[Adia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book made up of beautiful words and photos that I just didn't seem to get. It conveyed grief, yes, and loss, but it was a wallow in an incredibly personal grief, one portrayed in lots of words that didn't mean anything put together (at least to me). Occasionally I 'd get the gist of what exactly she was talking about, but most of it was vague... "...a sister who is dreaming becomes a sister in another sister's dream momentarily forgetting that music is playing—" Maybe it was merely the sense of emotional confusion and loss that was intended; if so, Nguyen did a good job.

[Mollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beautiful and I’m very inspired by its graphic design choices. The more poetry that calls the genre into question the better.

[Sandra Del Rio · Rating 5 out of 5]

uncontained even / water abandons i/tself

Chills.

[anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautifully written—an exploration of her brother’s suicide, family ties, and grief
i enjoyed each section even more than the previous one; i could feel the grief compounding + increasing personal reflections with each successive poem in her attempt of making sense of her brother’s passing

bookmarked sections:
Family Ties
Triptych (Part One, #2)
A Woman May Not Be a Safe Place
An Empty House us a Debt
Ghost Of

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had perhaps the best interior book design I’ve ever seen. The visuals and forms so perfectly matched these poems and the overall message of the book, and it was a treat to read these poems knowing their presentation was thought about with such care. “Ghost Of” makes for a really interesting addition to the subset of poetry collections about grief. These poems are not easy, but aren’t so complicated that you’ll be scratching your head wondering about the deeper meaning. If you’re looking for a poetry collection that’s a little funky, requiring a little analysis and time to appreciate, I’d definitely recommend this.

[sewena]

this is my second read and i appreciated it a lot more this time. this is nguyen's debut and it's a whammy of a start: circulating around the suicide of her younger brother and the family photographs he cut himself out of before, some of the poems are arranged in the holes and cut-outs left in those very photos. this is a very sad book but also a very controlled book. it asks, how do we remember? how do we keep someone alive? i don't think this book is about memorialization per say, but it's not raw or messy. maybe a third read lies in the future!

[Skye · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just don’t like poetry and this one is too artistic. Better than the last poetry collection I read though and had some good elements.

[Carey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sealey Challenge 2025: 23/31

I'm often drawn to works that explore sibling grief, but Diana Khoi Nguyen’s debut stands out as one of the most affecting I’ve read. The collection’s power lies not only in its emotional resonance but also in its inventive use of form and multimedia elements.

Nguyen doesn’t just write about loss, but rather she constructs a landscape of mourning that is visual, textual, and spatial all at once. Through poems that incorporate photographs and physical absences —spaces where her late brother has literally been cut out of family images — Nguyen transforms grief into both an artistic and emotional investigation. The result is haunting and disorienting, mirroring the experience of those who have lost someone suddenly, and especially those who mourn a sibling. For readers unfamiliar with this kind of loss, the fragmented structure and interplay between text and image may feel jarring or distant. But for those who have lived with grief’s lingering presence, Nguyen’s approach feels achingly true. The collection captures the way grief refuses to be contained as it seeps into memory, art, and daily life, appearing in unexpected forms. The title of the collection feels most literal here because throughout your life there will always be a Ghost of something from this trauma.

This collection for me was less an attempt to heal, but more-so a gesture of reaching. It felt like Nguyen had a hand extended across absence toward a brother who can no longer answer, but also she is extending a hand to those on a similar journey to see that grief can manifest in so many different ways. It is a work of tenderness and raw reflection on what it means to live alongside ghosts and to find the language for love that can never be forgotten.

[ジェシカ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note to self: revisit when grieving or worried about Josh.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

"When you love someone more than you've ever known you could, it is a good thing, except for the terrifying

realization that one day there comes a parting."



This is probably the "best" book I have ever rated so low. I can tell that this is art. I can tell that there is careful intention and craftsmanship behind the words, the form, the collection. It just does not connect with me whatsoever. I am lucky to have never experienced the death of a sibling (and truthfully I cannot even pretend to imagine it), but it does seem that grief is a universal enough theme that I should be able to find some resonance in these pages — but I don't, or at least not much of it.

The quote I selected above is one of the only on-the-nose sentiments in the book — maybe too on-the-nose, if it weren't followed by two excellently curated page breaks of blankness that really helped it breathe. I could have used more anchors like that. Instead I felt like for the most part I was wading through words and shapes without much to grasp onto — perhaps effective for what the author was trying to communicate about her own mourning, but not something that made for a worthwhile reading experience, in my opinion.

[Hollis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was sold from the first brief poem that stats this volume. Nguyen presents interesting concepts and formal play to speak to grief, loss, and various hauntings. I was really drawn in by the consistent commentary on the relationship between sound and silence as well as the boundedness of matter. Her Triptych visual form was quite interesting as an inventive attempt at visual poetry. These poems would include blocks of text that employed a strangely calming repetitive sentence structure that I find myself borrowing from. The Gyotaku form was another interesting attempt at visual poetry, though I will admit that the visual poems were occasionally less interesting to me compared to the more familiar poetic styles, if only because I feel that the language seemed to take a backseat to the formal arrangements. Nonetheless, the varied focus on visuality made this collection consistently interesting and inspiring to read. Some of my favorite pieces include "Overture," "Family Ties," "Ghost Of," "Future Self," and "Reprise."

"A wild dog rose, unraveling the marvel of the field.
Most fragrant hum of all shed feathers.
Like some strange music: the world started up again around him." (from "Reprise")

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. Once I saw the foreword by Terrance Hayes, who is top tier for me, I perked up (just got this at random from the library). The poems are instantly engaging, interesting and evocative. At first I was not sure how I felt about visual elements, but I rode with it.

Once I took a moment to look up gyotaku, I was sold. Per Wikipedia: Gyotaku (魚拓, from gyo "fish" + taku "stone impression") is the traditional Japanese method of printing fish, a practice which dates back to the mid-1800s. This form of nature printing, where ink is applied to a fish which is then pressed onto paper, was used by fishermen to record their catches, but has also become an art form of its own.

How fascinating to incorporate into poetry.

But beyond a "gimmick" (it's not, though), the poems are beautiful, powerful, poignant. I was all in by the end and was sad when I realized it was over.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Diana Khoi Nguyen's "Ghost of" is surreal, elliptical, and haunting: Nguyen doesn't just write an elegy, but takes one into the forms and headspace of mourning. Nguyen's experience as a multi-media artist leads her to incorporate analogous and concrete forms through the text, creating formal representations of lack and haunting that pair very well with her expressionistic and surreal texts. Furthermore, Nguyen's invocation of the Vietnam War and her family's inheritance as refugees contextualizing both her personal loss and the way this reflects on historical grief. Strong recommendation.

[Kate]

More poetry/attempts to get back into contemporary poetry as a relative dum dum separated from the academy by almost ten years.

This one is more elegiac than the last two books I read, although definitely has some moments of humor, not that you need them, although I personally like them. I had the sense I was mourning something without knowing the full story. Maybe that was the point? My favorites were “A Woman May Not Be a Safe Place” and “An Empty House is a Debt”. A line from the latter: “A human is someone who becomes terrified, and having become terrified, / craves an end to her fear.

This craving carves a cave.”

[Anatoly Molotkov · Rating 5 out of 5]

"what may exist between appearance and disappearance, between sound and silence, as something that is nearly nothing - slow music, quiet music, spare music - of sound and form I fell asleep tonight after feeding us both it was hard to think of you cold..." In this inspiring collection, Diana Khoi Nguyen renders grief in shape as well as in story, resulting in a moving, innovatively presented book that deals with deeply personal aspects of outliving a loved one while offering the reader new tools to understand the world.

[Juhee Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

so pleased and saddened i hadn’t discovered this work earlier. ghost of cuts out shadows and blurs the outlines, shifting in and out of dichotomies with imagery of life and death, sound and silence, full and empty, being and not being, and an overwhelming tide of water.

“Immediately I spotted one hoof print, then nothing, as if this was where she dragged herself out of the body”

“A man lies in an open grave after a body is taken out of it. This practice is said to lengthen life expectancy. The brother imagines his bed is a nest in which is body is removed.”

[Selene Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This stands as one of the most heart-wrenching poetry collections I have encountered. The honesty it presents about the suicide of a loved one gives the reader permission to wander through their own shame and ghosts. The uncanny becomes verbalized in innovative visual form, that not only pushes the limits and expands the possibilities of what poetry can be, but defies what grief and absence look like.

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

From "The Birdhouse in the Jungle": "My siblings and I play orphan / in the wilds we built with plastic. / What we witnessed of the world was a cloak / cut, sewn, then fashioned into tinier envies."

Spacial engagement with family photos—writing into silence. Unerasure.

[Joe Imwalle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible! Diana’s form and content reach perfection. The lines are unexpected and strikingly beautiful. Requires time and attention by her readers but so well worth it. Recommended.

[Conor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only book of poetry I've ever read. Makes me want to read more.

[Kassy Lee]

I loved how this book played with a formal represenation of the present-absent loved one. I felt these poems in my heart and soul; the emotions weren't bogged down by conceit or artifice. Would be a lovely study of elegy for students of poetry.