All the Flowers Kneeling

The Penguin Poets

by Paul Tran

A profound meditation on physical, emotional, and psychological transformation in the aftermath of imperial violence and interpersonal abuse, from a poet both "tender and unflinching" (Khadijah Queen)

Visceral and astonishing, Paul Tran's debut poetry collection All the Flowers Kneeling investigates intergenerational trauma, sexual violence, and U.S. imperialism in order to radically alter our understanding of freedom, power, and control. In poems of desire, gender, bodies, legacies, and imagined futures, Tran's poems elucidate the complex and harrowing processes of reckoning and recovery, enhanced by innovative poetic forms that mirror the nonlinear emotional and psychological experiences of trauma survivors. At once grand and intimate, commanding and deeply vulnerable, All the Flowers Kneeling revels in rediscovering and reconfiguring the self, and ultimately becomes an essential testament to the human capacity for resilience, endurance, and love.

Genres: Poetry, LGBT, Queer, Audiobook, Fiction, Asian American, Contemporary

112 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2022

Reviews

[aly ☆彡 (on vacation) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I kind of figure that modern poetry is not my niche, and most times, I don't wanna read them just so my disfavor towards it wouldn't cloud my judgment. When you already have certain poetic forms that you abhor, it can be difficult to be objective. However, there are times when I do want this genre to grow on me, so I'm opening up to chances that I will find one that I will eventually love.

Apart from the obvious, I do like poetry — but only when they are classics or sonnets. And so this book puts me in a very difficult position because the themes it centered to are so vital and personal and expressing that, AGAIN, I didn't like it feels so inconsiderate and wrong. Tran carefully considers every part of how their pain and their mother's trauma are expressed in poetry, including diction, sound, and structure. So who am I to criticize someone's form of expression as bad?

Even so, I am still a reader (with no expertise mind you) and it's not all the time one's works will resonate with me (which is also not fair because you don't always have to feel the same importance as others for you to enjoy it). In the case of Tran, their way of writing just happened to bug me a lot. Some poets have their preferences for particular structures, and others prefer to write with a lack of structure, but I have an aversion to all the mixed and disorderly forms of the poems.

It makes me so hard to read and retain my attention (my mild ADHD is not giving me or this book justice). Therefore, this particular part frustrated me a lot because I wanted to make it to the end. Although the poetry in these works is colorful, the artistry is as subtle as invisible mending; you won't notice the threads unless you look for them and it is almost impossible to do so when you find yourself closing the book more than you should. Not to mention, how I cowered at some of the references in their writing.

On a side note, I do appreciate Tran's voice in sharing their experience, contextualizing the United States’ brutal intervention in Vietnam’s civil war. I believe that Tran's poetry offers an alternative to a culture that encourages us to value achievement over introspection and certainty over uncertainty. Their collection serves as a crucial reminder that periods of ignorance can also be constructive.

I have confidence that the right person will find this brilliant and daring. I was hoping it would be the matter for me on Tran's upcoming pieces.

[Lyd Havens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speechless. A difficult but necessary—and game-changing—read.

[Kayley · Rating 3 out of 5]

“No child in our family stays a child their mother can love.”

I was sent this collection of poetry as an ARC, and while I’m no expert on poetry, I found Tran to be a talented poet. Many poems were powerful yet dark. There were a few I didn’t like; pop culture references & imagery I just wasn’t a fan of. But I’m always hesitant to criticize poetry (unless it’s blatantly bad.) With poetry this intimate, it's hard for me to accurately judge a thing. Am I just uncomfortable with the level of vulnerability that they're displaying? There was a lot of intentional repetition and word play that I found unique and interesting, and only slightly tedious at times. It’s described as “At once grand and intimate, commanding and deeply vulnerable”, which sums it up incredibly well.

[Ally Ang · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook version of this book and I was totally enraptured by Tran’s reading of their work. They are an incredibly dynamic reader and hearing these poems read aloud gave me a greater appreciation for the way the poet plays with sound/rhyme/repetition/musicality.

[Richard S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Tran's book is brilliant in places, and there's a lot going on here in the book as a book, not just a collection of poems, but some poems begun in the first part continue on in the last part - there are repeated themes and titles, with subtle changes in style.

Throughout is an overarching sensitivity to trauma, grief and family.

Great poems: The three poems called "Scientific Method", "Bioluminscence," the poems about his father (less so the ones about his mother), when Tran reaches to sensitive and vulnerable places his poetry improves dramatically and becomes deeply moving.

The only complaint is what I call "form-confusion" where he goes off on tangents like part 13 of the Scherazade poem which undermine its effectiveness. Also some of the poems are very weak, the first two poems in the collection were not the best way to start. The "Report" poems unclear why they are included. He might be more creative with word choice in places like the "Judith" poem which seemed a bit crude for no particular reason.

I sense Paul Tran's next book will be more artistic - he's a bit obsessed with form, and the end notes are overly long and make me feel like he's trying too much, and distancing himself. There's a great artist in him waiting just be unleashed. We will see. I want his next book just to be about him, and his life, not the lives of scientists and paintings by other artists.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poetry is a genre where I think the content is often intensely personal for the author, where inspiration and content is often taken from within and from their own experiences. I am also someone who struggles to connect / feels like they don't 'get' a lot of poetry. For these two reasons I don't feel placed to say too much about this debut collection beyond that I struggled to connect with it beyond a handful of poems which had some excellent lines in them (Year of the Monkey was a standout).

Thank you Netgalley and Penguin for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

[Basia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of these poems felt plucked from an impressive bouquet of numerous poetic forms, including the hydra, Paul Tran's revision of the sonnet crown. In poems that mirror, circle back to, and fold in on themselves, in poems loaded with wordplay (some instances stronger than others), this collection is concerned with the many faces of disempowerment, like sexual assault and American imperialism, but never resigns to powerlessness, possessing a blistering self-awareness instead: "My purpose is precision. // Even when I'm unclear I'm deliberate. // When I'm deliberate I'm liberated."

[Emma Griffioen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars!

this was undoubtedly well written and i can totally see how it was nominated for a goodreads choice award last year. i expected it to hit me a little harder because of the topic, but the vagueness left room for my mind to wander a lot. i only ended up highlighting 3 passages and then 'the santa ana' entirely (prob my fav poem in the collection) but was kind of hoping for me.

[scl.ashx · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5

"I, after so much isolation, so much indifference, kept going even if going to mean only waiting, hovering in place. So far below, so far
away from the rest of life...."

"All the flowers kneeling" by Paul Tran is a delight of words written about rediscovering and reconfiguring oneself, and this collection becomes an essential attestation to the human ability of resilience, fortitude and love.

Considering it's a debut collection - I'm dumbfounded. The collection is immaculate, and every word was dripping with emotions. At times, I had to stop and absorb what I was actually feeling.

A definite recommendation.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredible collection of poetry. It focuses heavily on trauma and healing. Most distinctively, these poems have a strong and unique progression. They spiral and curve and sharpen at just the right moments to wrap the reader in. The train-of-consciousness effect utilized in these poems lends some really interesting sonic echos! A must-read.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems unfair to just mark this as the poetry of trauma, but the trauma is here. Name it is as you wish - pear or what not. I think Tran knows we’re smart enough to process and protect. We’ve all been healing in one manner or another. These poems pull the flowers from the root. The garden has been undone.

[Dana DesJardins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, beautiful, and harrowing. Watch his video "How Poetry Works" to get a taste of Tran making the personal political.

[Hannah Cao · Rating 3 out of 5]

dark yet powerful — this was a difficult but important read

[Joseph Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this collection; truthfully I am conflicted. On the one hand the writing is clear and reveals a lucid mastery of the language. The whole collection has that cool polished sparseness that usually makes modern writing a pleasure to read, especially in poetry. For sure, a few of these poems are breathtakingly beautiful.

On the other hand, the sparseness, for me, betrays a sort of pedantic dryness that seems detached. A sort of measured control that irons out the distinctions of what would otherwise be smart twinges of the type of subversiveness that Tran seems to be commenting on. More precisely, while attempting to point out the failings of Western science, academia, theology, and war mongering (among other things) the delivery becomes punchless and predictable—by adopting the very language of the traditions he wants to throw stones at. A systemically parched tone that has plagued academia forever at the expense of actual inclusion and vivaciousness.

Also, homophones… they can become slick literary devices that are powerful and help create mood, accentuate allusion, and can break up the cadence with multiple implied streams of symbolism. However, I found them overused here; after the third or fifth time they popped up their application lost the oomph factor.

Tran does do a great job of transcribing threads of pain, loss and grief in a way that might help others that have suffered sexual abuse. In that sense, these poems may reveal something valuable and will likely help others in their own healing processes. In the end, these poems, while beckoning towards something monumental in the nonstop and fickle stream of consciousness of this hour, at least for my expectations, read more like a treatise on Trans’ personal heartbreaking pain. Not really emblematic of breaking traditions. Of course that’s fine if that is your goal, but I don’t get the sense that Tran is aiming for that. What Trans seems to be aiming for is showing innovation and transcendence through reframing narratives around visceral experiences that overcome personal tragedy and the degradation of the conceptual self. But, as someone fairly jaded by the benighted and entitled sense one can’t help but feel in academia, with its agenda of smoke and mirrors, this writing fell somewhat flat. By massaging prescriptive, clinical and even a low-grade didactic essence embedded in the Western Tradition without a sense of timelessness, I see no break from tradition here. Even so, as mentioned above, some of this was truly astonishing.

The first poem from the book is one, among a handful, that made buying the book worth it:

Into the shadows I go
and find you, gorgeous as your necklace
of nine hundred and ninety-nine index fingers.
All of them point at me
as the kill to complete your mission:
to return to your kingdom by returning to your king
a thousand human sacrifices.
You chase me. You swing your sword
yet I remain beyond your reach.
I’ll surrender, I tell you,
when you detach from your received idea of purpose.
So you do. You set down your weapon.
But I didn’t mean the blade in your hand.
I meant the blade in your mind.

The poems in All the Flowers Kneeling that read like this are 5+ in terms of having a major incandescence. Most of the rest, in my opinion, hover around 3.5ish.

[Inverted · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much violence contained — as wildfires are contained — in these poems. For instance, I See Not Stars But Their Light Reading Across The Distance Between Us, their "Hydra" (nonce form), exemplifies not only Tran's incredible formal thrusts (13 sections! x 13 lines!), but their assured (often juicy) resistance to closure. Consider:

By my own
Invention, I found a way.
I'm no artifact. Between art and fact: I.

the linguistic flips also doubling as insistence on poems being nodes of negotiation. In the same poem, from a different section:

A problem was only a problem until I found a way to use it.

the constant reclaiming and recalibrating of one's violent past — without losing sight of where the fires are headed / could head next — allow Tran to bind and untangle these poems (and their past) as they please.

(If I could throw a shoe on a book, I would on this. God I love this collection.)

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read All the Flowers Kneeling for a poetry class this semester and had the opportunity to hear Paul Tran speak at University of Michigan. A beautiful debut collection from an incredible poet who manages to be haunting, inspiring, and devastating all at once. Metaphors draw on famous paintings, scientific concepts, and historic events. Tran’s cultural heritage, traumatic experiences, and unique brand of wisdom all play out. There are impressive poetic exercises like the invented for of the “hydra” poem that had me flipping back and forth the appreciate how every line connects. My personal favorites were “Bioluminescence” and “Hupothesis” 🐠🌼🕯️

[Seher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read and review All the Flowers Kneeling.

This book is definitely not a quick read but it is worth the effort that you need to put in. Bioluminescence, year of the money, first law of motion are all really fantastic poems, and I want my own copy of this book to re-read them!

[Sahara Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal writing that moved me to reach for my own pen. The pieces weren't only beautifully done but also emoted so many spectrums of emotion. Very well done.

[Kevin Zhang · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no linear manner to violence, to harm, to the healing and the way the body keeps score and bathes in grief- I question and raise the responsibility of readership to find the incision, the entry point into something such as poetry, I’m starting to question critique, is it trauma response in itself? is craft then alongside avoidance?

I will say the only way I was unmet in my struggling through this book (because to be with this collection is to immerse in its darkness) is the endings of stanzas, the poems themselves, even the final poem; the ending of the book as a whole.

but perhaps this is part of its meditating act; its imagining of future, the unsettling and lack thereof of concrete, still ending, what BLOOMING? not so sure and replicable

and the more I read poetry, the less I demand the answers to be served to me in the landing, there really is no bow of an end point when it comes to resuscitation and moving through violence, as a function of imperialism, sex, family, body, etc

[Sam (she_who_reads_) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing I can say about this that could possibly do it justice, so just read it.

[Devyn Derksen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Ocean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy of this book!


This is a very evocative poetry collection, very powerful and timely too.
I was touched by the agile word play and the rythm of many of the poems, as much as by their themes: institutional violence against immigrants, and rape but also of hope and precious a heritage of stories and love.

I will very much be looking forward to reading more poetry by this author as he is evidently very cultured and talented.

[Natalie Chavez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm just not a poetry bitch I'm sorry I'm trying

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mesmerizing. Raw. Meditative. Not sure if any other collection this year could outshine this gathering of flowers.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful but dark. There were a few moments that really resonated with me as a Vietnamese American woman with an immigrant mother. But honestly the main themes were life, trauma, and the path to recovery. Overall, it reminds of how fortunate I am to live the life that I have. I have so much sympathy for those who have experienced so much emotional pain. This book contained many references with a notes section at the very end. Reading that alone tells me so much about the author. They are definitely well-read and diversely cultured. I like listening to people like this.

[Delaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

My notes for this poetry collection: Scientific analysis dissection, research, discovery, reclamation, liberation, reckoning, but poetry and art all at once.

Or, as Paul Tran wrote in their acknowledgement, "that a poem is the discovery and enactment of an emotional and psychological investigation into the vexed interiority of a speaker, that the interior is indeed political—and that every poem, every time, in some miraculous way, must be an argument about the making of poetry itself."

[Janis Yue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read these poems curled up in the safety of my bed under my comfiest blankets, that was how much these poems broke me open. Paul Tran has a true gift for alchemizing experiences of surviving the unthinkable into gold, sometimes stained and sometimes shining.

[☘︎ elisabet ☘︎ · Rating 1 out of 5]

“I’m miraculous.
Chickenshit.
Cashing my checks.“

[The Bookworm · Rating 1 out of 5]

I guess modern poetry isn’t for me.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Copy gifted by the publisher]

READ IF YOU LIKE...
• Varied and purposeful poetic forms
• Honest and raw explorations of trauma
• Vietnamese history

I THOUGHT IT WAS...
A captivating collection of poetry that presents new perspectives on fine art, scientific history, and religion in service to the devastating process of recounting and processing trauma.

What I loved most about Tran's debut is how purposeful it is. Through recurring imagery and forms, they connect everything together in a way almost similar to the spiral depicted on the cover. At its heart is a 13-section poem in an invented form, taking the conventional and comfortable sonnet and tilting it off balance. Tran shares in their notes that this "Hydra" form is meant to convey how things don't flow and resolve neatly in trauma. Indeed, that is the central theme of the collection, but one that ends with a feeling of fortitude.