My family history is one of pain. My grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles were all sponsored to come to the US during the Cambodian genocide. We lost many family members. Since then, they have all made sacrifices, so their own children did not have to face pains anything close to theirs; and they succeeded.
My collection of poems in Learning How to Talk shows glimpses of my life from a family with this history. Although I did not experience their past trauma, there is evidence of its existence in my life. I do not feel like I have right to explain their story but instead show my own side to reveal its progression from pain to love. Love is central to these works.
I wrote many of these poems when I decided to take my passion of writing more seriously. The result was poems voicing moments from my childhood to my early twenties. All of them contain a sense of silence in them regarding “what was said” in relation to “what was actually communicated”. In poems like, “Luxury” and “Pomade as Power”, I include real moments of problematic dialogue. In my poems closely linked to family, like “The Changing of Seasons” and “Family Recipes”, I complicate language barriers. In many ways, the title “Learning How to Talk” is literal. In all these situations, I’m learning how to navigate these conversations that shaped who’ve I become, and it is also a reflection on our current social and political climate. All of us know how to talk and my poems deal with understanding what we are really trying to say.
Khmer, the language of Cambodia, shows up frequently in these poems. I am not well versed in the language. However, my best Khmer involves food. Frequently, food is the catalyst for significant moments in my life. This is a cultural and familial connection. Many poems involve food not primarily as a consumption of hunger but of the soul.
During the publication of Learning How to Talk, my grandfather passed away. In reflecting on his passing, I found that he understood love better than I ever could. What comes after these poems is my further exploration of love through all these complexities. But my clearest definition will always be one of my family. The last poem, “Vows”, is fitting in that the children of our family are continuing the story of our traumatic history and making it a happy one. In honor of the family, we lost and in honor of the family we have, Learning How to Talk continues our story.
Nick Chhoeun earned his MFA in Creative Writing from American University. His work explores themes of identity, culture, and love through an Asian American millennial perspective. As a teacher, he shares his passion for writing with his students at Central Connecticut State University and the University of Hartford. He is a Davis Fellow. Aside from his works in writing, you can find him rocking out with his band Not Freshmen. LEARNING HOW TO TALK (above/ground press, 2023) is his chapbook debut.