I always feel like a baby learning how to talk when it comes to condensing my thoughts about poetry. It's one thing I want to get better at and build skill in criticism and the lexicon.

Probably the best use of enjambement I have seen in poetry ever. Vuong has such a deep understanding of spacing and language. It's hard to describe and I would do it a disservice trying to showcase it here; it's something you'd have to read yourself.

In this volume there is the trauma of war, of absent fathers, dead friends, the traumas of war juxtaposed with the delicate moments between humans.

Water imagery features strongly here: water as nourishment and as aggressor.

Longing is so well portrayed "teach me/ how to hold a man like thirst / holds water."

Lines that cut deep and kiss the wound better. While what we have is beautiful, there is an overall repetition of theme and rather than turn over new thoughts and ideas, he is rehashing motifs he's already dealt with before. Some of his best poems are in the final section like "Notebook Fragments" and "Ode to Masturbation". He is at his best when he is the most personal.

Vuong is a very skilled writer and he's clearly more comfortable with poetry with prose; the inverse of me I suppose. But with time comes familiarity and he will build skill with it. He has an immensely promising career ahead of him.