Jam Alerts

Poetry. Asian American Studies. JAM ALERTS is the newest title from this important and prolific poet. Linh Dinh is one of the most consistently surprising writers around. One can find sources & roots for his writing, explain the sources of surrealism through the presence, say, of the French in Vietnam (tho they were driven out a decade before he was born), note that he is hardly the only good or succesful Vietnamese American poety, let alone the only poet to come from a working class background, yet he is not writing ‘about’ or even ‘toward’ nor ‘from’ any one of these contexts so much as he is through them–they are lenses, filters that condition his perspective on everyday life. Imagine what any other poet with this strong a sense of form would have to become in order to write such poetry…Linh is writing straightforward poetry, but from a perspective shared by almost no one else. This kind of exile is far deeper than mere geography –Ron Silliman. Be sure to check out Linh Dinh’s BORDERLESS BODIES and AMERICAN TATTS, both currently available from SPD.