“In graduate school, I wrote a version of this poem which served as a grounding myth for the familial, psychological, and emotional content in my work. Eventually, I realized that, while I had learned much about ‘craft,’ my poems were stripped of details from the communities to which I belong; instead my poems reflected the predominately white institutions that educated me. Years later, I stumbled across the old version and removed that which does not speak with verisimilitude to my lived experience. I no longer ‘translate’ away ethnic details when I write, but try to capture these elements with irreplaceable precision.”
—Diana Khoi Nguyen