Revisions

by Eric Tran

True to a physician’s gaze, these poems, in their unflinching obsession with the renewal and failure of bodies, both tender and visceral at once, plant Eric Tran firmly in the long tradition of healer-wordsmiths, right alongside William Carlos Williams, Fady Joudah, and Rafael Campo.

Genres: Poetry

50 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2018

Reviews

[Julie G]

Something wonderful has been happening lately to me in the poetry sections of bookstores: as I stand before them and open one bad poetry collection after another and then return those books back to their proper places, one lone renegade of a book will take a flying leap and throw itself at me, causing me to reach out and catch it before it falls to the ground.

Strangely, it is always the winner.

This was the exact scenario with Eric Tran's Revisions. I reached out and caught it as it careened toward the carpet. Once I had it in my hands, I thought the cover was ugly, the title was uninspired, and I didn't recognize the writer's name. Then I opened up to the first poem, and I knew that I had gotten lucky again.

When this collection was published in 2018, Eric Tran was a medical student who wrote poetry. Is he a doctor now? I don't know, but I do know now that he has one previous collection, Affairs with Men in Suits. I also know that poets don't really make money, so he should hang on to that medical degree.

But here's what's really exciting: he's an excellent poet.

His poems are a unique fusion of what happens when a person studies anatomy and physiology by day and then delves into the nuances of novel language at night.

Here's an example, in case you're suspecting this is boring:

In old age, the brain becomes the weakest link, the first chain
to snap under duress. Insomnia, UTI, too few leafy greens can
erase all the names in your family, make you think the neighbor
is being kidnapped, erase the ability to know if the cats around
your feet are real or imagined.

See?

Here's another:

Soap the backs of your hands, too. You are a pinwheel of contact
points; more than your palms have touched the world today.
Flood the fine creases of your wrists, bury the mountains of
your knuckles. Each finger is a molting snake, each hand an
unbaptized infant. Look: Your forearms end in clouds. The
sink is a fresh-made bed, and your hands carry so many weary
travelers.

I've never been more excited than I am right now, to schedule an appointment with a doctor.

[Jenna]

Powerful chapbook from the perspective of a poet whose overlapping identities include (but are not limited to) Vietnamese American, gay man, medical student. Moving meditations on personal bereavements as well as collective griefs, Orlando and Ferguson. "I guess most grieve by grip and tread, but isn't all grief a failing brake?" Mostly prose poems, sonically strong, alliteration- and anaphora-rich, stormy with long tumbling cadences, a billowy thundering lyricism -- easy to imagine these poems silencing a room with awe when performed out loud. Many of the poems (e.g., the x-ray one, the X-Men one; also a few of my favorites, like "Answers" and the Best-of-the-Net-honored "My Mother Asks Me How I Knew I Was Gay...") can be read at the poet's website, here: http://veryerictran.com/writing . Looking forward to Tran's first full-length coming out next year!

[Novi]

3.75/5

At the time this was published, the author was a medical student at UNC. Insane that on the back one of the book endorsements is Ocean Vuong. Lovely short collection on the intersection of queer, Vietnamese, and medical student identities.

Fav poems:
- Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA)
- 10 responses to a click bait headline
- the first X-ray
- portraits of handwashing

[Brandon Amico]

A vivid tour through the wild territory of the body; what it creates, remembers, and grows around.