Vi Khi Nao’s Fish Carcass is a dynamic investigation of queerness, the body, and identity as told through bold and experimental poetic matter. I hesitate to use the word “poetry” to describe her 2022 collection, as the breadth of her work is so much more multidimensional than that. The collection is divided into three sections: “Victuals,” “Spasms,” and “Corporality.” The poems seem to remain within the theme established by their respective section, but even this organizational strategy becomes subverted. Both Nao’s individual poems and her literary organization refuse to follow a set of rules.
“Victuals” is a tasting menu of poetry packed full of allusion and universal relation. The poems in this section are filled with references to dishes from around the world. The opening poem, “The Binchōtan Charcoal & Its Ash,” is rife with allusions, from Japanese charcoal to Lao Tzu. Nao immediately exposes readers to a breadth of imagery both within and beyond Vietnam. From its first line, The opening poem also introduces readers to Nao’s inexplicable ability to describe esoteric feelings in a universal and visceral way. She writes, “Is marriage like owning a very expensive art piece? // Your spouse the painting? / You the crooked frame that won’t fit?” Nao’s words have a way of describing emotions through images that are commonplace enough that any reader should be able to feel a pang through their heart as they read.
In my personal favorite “Coital Exposure,” Nao mentions a uniquely Vietnamese dish to bring in ideas of queer identity, likening a spring roll to male genitalia. She pokes fun at the idea that “women who don’t date men” have a “lack of coital exposure” by describing a spring roll with phallic intricacy. Here, Nao’s ability to paint an image using only simple adjectives is subtle and brilliant, as she describes the dish as having “translucent skins” and “big juicy veins.” Underneath the entire poem is a tone of snarkiness at the expectation that queer women must be missing something without phallic exposure, a standard that is smashed by the final lines, “…something that dips / Well with peanut sauce / But technically so much / Better with nước mắm / The female organ as / Squid in liquid form.”
The second section “Spasms” handles the topic of rape and sexual assault, calling attention to the way these attacks are experienced as “involuntary muscle contractions.” Not all of the poems are explicitly about rape, but nonetheless offer a critical perspective on social standards which are dangerously accepted as commonplace. One example is the first poem “Sleep,” which consists of one very long stanza composed of short lines. The speaker comments on the harm of overworking, which is a kind of involuntary acceptance of a harsh reality of our world.
The other poems in “Spasms” similarly follow the single-stanza structure of “Sleep,” conveying the weight of trauma. In “Abyss,” for example, the speaker paints a narrative: “Naked / They are walking her / To the outer edge / Where water meets delirium … They toss another naked man / In / With her/ Before tossing him / They tell him, / You may rape her now, Brother.” Little is hidden in this second section. Nao faces the horrors of rape head-on, calling it out by name. Another poem, “Cavity,” begins “You defecate / Then you get raped.” Nao brings rape into the forefront of her poems, calling attention to harassment’s frequency in everyday life.
“Spasms” culminates in two arresting poems that maintain the long, list-like structure of the section. The first, titled “United,” is a list of women’s names that, when read together, are understood to be a list of sexual assualt victims. The second, titled “States,” is a list of men’s names, the assaulters. Taken together, these poems are a spine-chilling account of the harsh reality of our world.
The last section of the collection, “Corporality,” throws structure entirely out of the window. These poems are abstract and unconventional, a compelling display of what Nao can do. From photographs and blood test results to a long prose-style narrative, “Corporality” retains its theme of bodily existence through the common exploration of body parts. The first poem of the section, “My Experience,” is simply a photograph of the words “suicide attempt #1 suicide attempt #2 suicide attempt #3” up to “suicide attempt #32” typed on a page. This poem is daring, as it refuses to follow expectations of what a poem should be, forcing the audience to confront the brute fact of suicide.
The speakers in “Corporality” become a bridge for the personal and the universal. Their stories are relayed through an exploration of contrasting methods, from soft and subtle remarks to dark and unwavering displays of trauma. “My Mouth” is a soft poem, where the speaker details their harmful behaviors in a way that could be overlooked. The beginning lines “To clothe my mouth / I kiss you” quickly shift toward a different tone, “To clothe my soul / I disappear into you,” showing how a toxic relationship can affect one’s personhood. Still, these lines elicit a feeling of love, albeit harmful love. In contrast, “My Face” is a single stanza of discomfort and harm: “When he rode me on his motorcycle, / The wind shook my face like a glass of water / When I climbed down from the bike / My face spilled all over me.” There is little need to interpret the ache and trauma in this piece.
Nao’s Fish Carcass stretches the notion of poetry to its limits. The stretching never breaks, however, as the difficult themes explored throughout its pages require a kind of subversion of genre. The experiences detailed, the concepts explored, and the images called upon all serve to attempt to put the impossible into words, somehow.
Fish Carcass
by Vi Khi Nao
Black Sun Lit, $18.00
Melina Kritikopoulos is a mixed-race writer and journalist of Greek and Vietnamese descent. She is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley where she works for The Daily Californian. She produces and hosts the podcast Poetic Pontification, highlighting poets of the East Bay Area.
