Autumn
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“Crafting my 21-Year-Old Self,” A Portrait Poem
~~~ Hammering down on the mortal page, creating my double clothed in words. Pockets of invisible light penetrating my skin, exposing ruby jewels: tissues, veins, & blood. I build transparent cabinets, housing my strung together vignettes waiting to be unsealed. I cross out uneven bangs from an unfortunate haircut for long, steady black waves. I paint pensive, brown wrapping themselves around a bouquet of fiction books and prayers. I carve mountainous curves on my rosy lips which grumble & trace the sounds of Ancient Greek. Smearing with crumbly charcoal, I erase Mandarin from the page. I stick my sweet teeth together, the tools in my toolbox that work but can’t…
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A Phở Love Story Book Review
Loan Le’s YA romance novel A Phở Love Story is a contemporary Romeo and Juliet retelling with Vietnamese American characters: Bảo Nguyễn and Linh Mai. The chapters alternate between Bảo and Linh’s focalizations. I typically enjoy alternating perspectives; however, I did get perplexed at times because the writing for both characters was almost identical. Linh and Bảo are quite similar because of the way they were raised up: working at their parents’ Vietnamese restaurants and navigating through their own dreams and the familial expectations pressed upon them. I wonder how the book would look like if the two characters were more distinct and contrasting because then it would further differentiate…
