REVIEW: “She, Self-Winding” by Luu Dieu Van
Cover image courtesy the poet and Ugly Duckling Presse.
REVIEW
She, Self-Winding
By Luu Dieu Van
Chapbook, $10.80
Ugly Duckling Presse
By Meredith Wood Bahuriak
In She, Self-Winding, the specific choice of words and superlative usage of imagery affirms the bold femininity of Luu Dieu Van’s narrative poetry. As well, this a series of poems illuminates the paradigm of the incredulous struggle to live with the archetypal judgment of western society.
The beginning of Dieu Van’s poetry reads as a hint of something personal to say on the subject, but doesn’t go further. An emphatic nod, a half told anecdote, an enigmatic ‘I know the feeling’ — which one places into conversations like those little flags that warn diggers of something buried underground.
semaphorism
a beautiful woman calling an ugly woman beautiful is a motivator
an ugly woman calling a beautiful woman ugly is a cynic
an ugly man calling a beautiful woman sexy is a chauvinist
a man calling any woman beautiful is actually a therapist
Her frequent use of humor and dramatic irony perpetuates each poem into the next.
premier funeral
victim and victory are of the same philosophy
overcoming one gains the other
daughter of doubts
Healing is forgetting that we are being forgotten
The poet’s words of brutality and truth, alert the reader to the many examples of personification in our daily lives.
neither jewelry nor perfume
misunderstanding is pre-pink
shells of memory penetrate cells turning malnourished
oily inferno of clemency with black seductive crack
with white chastity fight
blow by blow, dual-speed, from inaudible folding lips to audacious dermal rims
[ … ]
feminism doesn’t come with two AA batteries or instructions
but it is self-operated
In She, Self-Winding, Dieu Van’s juxtaposition highlights the contrast of man, woman, and humanity. A detailed memoir of a young immigrant girl coming into womanhood while surviving her harsh new society.
she self-winding
when her legs spread at a quarter of someone
a human angle divulges posthumously
a narrow entry only tongue-twisted lovers and political sympathizers can slip through
the most beautiful part of herself is self-winding
[ … ]
where real men love deeply, real women mate freely, as real humans suffer voluntarily the circuitry of trying and failing
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