The Open

by Lucy Van

Poetry. Fiction. Literary Nonfiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. Women's Studies. Introduction by Merlinda Bobis. All doors are open in Lucy Van's poetry. Ingress and egress are multiple, even coincident. We've just touched what's here, or are about to touch it, when apprehension is quickly unsettled, halted or reconfigured. Because we're only passing through a door or another door is opening, as the poet 'Another thought though (and oh, I think about how thought and though are very similar words).' Hers is a liminal though. Between what's touched and what's yet to be touched. Site of frisson. Contention. Then insight. "The book opens to Hotel Grand 'I have gone back and now I am here.' 'Back' is her father's family and roots in Vietnam, opening the door to his migration history, only a peek, though ('Never write a poem about a boat'), then opening to Vietnam's colonial history. And now we are here where the Vietnamese staff 'are always ready to serve' the French and other holidaying Europeans and white Australians, and herself, the Vietnamese Australian poet 'coming home,' though also waited on or waiting in a gift shop and unable to ask, because she can't speak her father's language. Van's poetry is an ongoing decolonial passage. Each opened space and time takes to task the one just left, then comes home to the poet, her self-reflexive though pointing to her own entanglement. She's inside and outside these pasts and presents, or touched and untouched." --Merlinda Bobis

Genres: Poetry

82 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2021

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

'... My son noticing my mother's schizophrenia, well, my alarm incalculable. How sanity comes and goes. Treats a person like a hotel. Hotels are not romantic or artistic but I think maybe they are transcendent. The corruption of one thing is the creation of another...'

From 'Leaves'.

[Lisa Collyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

'I watch myself not working and I watch the workers working...I am aware that this is this way because I am from a rich country because I was smuggled over from this poor one.'
Lucy Van, The Open, Corditebooks

Many Australians have a relationship with Vietnam, not least because they are in the south-east Asian region. My father was conscripted to what is known in America and Australia as the Vietnam War and known as the American War in Vietnam.
In these reflective prose poems, the speaker returns to the country she and her family fled from as many refugees during the American war and following. I also returned (in lieu) of my father when I turned 34 to cycle the length of Vietnam.
Lucy's poems speak of that dislocation in the host country and origin country as feeling displaced in both. Yet the return often confirms that you belong in your host country more than ever, by being marked as privileged.
This wonderful collection is published by @corditebooks and available from all good bookstores.
#vietnam #americanwar #AusLit #poetrycommunity

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prose poetry and short stories, meandering thoughts, with such vivid place.

A collision of revisiting and experiencing South Vietnam, watching the tennis in the Australian summer, and returning to everyday shopping and the library post-lockdowns. Contemplating literary works, and the interior monologues.

Stark, complex, and whimsical, but with depths of layers and observations.

[Just Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was interesting. A couple of lines stood out but for the most part I didn't connect with it. Some poetry is personal and or requires context that isn't universal or easily accessible. I picked this up out of curiosity and enjoyed trying it.