Reenactments
In Reenactments, Hai-Dang Phan grapples with the history, memory, and legacy of the Vietnam War from his vantage point as the son of Vietnamese refugees. Through a kaleidoscope of poetic forms, the past and present, the remembered and imagined, all intersect at shifting angles providing urgent perspectives on conflicts both private and public. Phan weaves throughout the collection stories of his family's exodus from Vietnam, thoughtfully reenacting an American experience of immigration, dislocation, inheritance, and hope. And, in a fresh move, Phan widens the lens, incorporating translations of several Vietnamese poets. This moving debut marks a vital addition to the literature of immigration and a distinctive contribution to contemporary poetry.
Hai-Dang Phan is a Vietnamese-American poet. His poems and translations have been published in The New Yorker, Poetry, Best American Poetry 2016, New England Review, jubilat, Prelude, Waxwing, Asymptote, and other journals. The author of a previous chapbook, Small Wars (Convulsive Editions, 2016), his work has been recognized with the Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry, an Emerging Writers Award from New England Review/Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and an NEA Fellowship. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Florida and a Ph.D. in Literary Studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Currently, he is an Assistant Professor of English at Grinnell College and lives in Des Moines, Iowa.
