Tupelo Press - Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker by Phan Nhien Hao

Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker by Phan Nhien Hao synopsis \| poems \| reviews
	$16.95 pb ISBN: 978-1-932195-31-6 Order Now! Go to Checkout

The work of exile poet Phan Nhien Hao, although he is not permitted to publish in his native Vietnam, is exceptionally well known there. Swaying between poems of the immigrant experience and poems that recollect his homeland's trauma after the war, his strong, sometimes surreal voice is always intoxicating. This is a dual language edition (Vietnamese and English).		People who bought Night, Fish and Charlie Parker also bought: Abiding Places

Reviews
	Vince Gotera doesn't so much review as celebrate Phan Nhien's Hao's work in of the North American Review: An overwhelming sense of liminality pervades these poems: "I walk on bridges connecting two alien shores," says the poet; "my country; which country, I asked." Surrealism also suffuses Phan's work, as does jazz: "all I love is jazz jazz jazz and lots of gasoline in my bloody abyss." Phan draws from Vietnamese, French, and American literatures, mixing traditional and modern Vietnamese cultures with French literature, "imbued with philosophy, with lots of experimentations": and American literature "suitable to a consumer society and a pragmatic culture, with that American emphasis on results" (as he told translator Linh Dinh in an interview included at the end of the book). Phan adds, "an investigation into American literature would greatly benefit Vietnamese writers. It would [. . .] improve their sense of humor." All of these qualities are combined in Phan's work, as glimpsed in the book's title Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker—especially humor. Phan's poetry is a distinctly American immigrant text, melancholy and celebratory at the same time. Read this book. Ron Silliman blogs on *Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker*.