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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
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Book Review: Split by Cathy Linh Che

Split
Cathy Linh Che
Alice James Books
2014
978-1-938584-05-3
87 pages
$15.95


Cathy Linh Che is the author of the poetry collection Split (Alice James Books, 2014), winner of the Kundiman Poetry Prize, the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the Best Poetry Book Award from the Association of Asian American Studies.


Review





















A Review of Cathy Linh Che's Split

Cathy Linh Che is an excavator who does not hesitate to “dig in, / [until] the bloodlines emerge” when she unearths the transgenerational trauma that is “buried in the motherland— / somewhere in Vietnam.” Split is a triadic collection of poetry where Che’s speaker identifies as a “daughter, a mirror / … [and] a window” who compartmentalizes her life as both an eyewitness and a victim of violence.
 
Part One centers on the speaker’s personal account of her “body’s disorderly circuitry” and the speaker’s sense of self. Che’s command of language can be seen in “In what way does the room map out violence?” Because all of the poems are written in first person, Split urges the reader to adopt the speaker’s hyperawareness as she navigates through her experience with sexual abuse:
Not by force—just a shush in the dark--
            no threat—just shush--
and sometimes I liked it—no injury no threat--
            sent my brother to the kitchen to check the toast--
 
It was winter—my cousin lay on top--
            my brother would not leave, watching
even as the toaster pinged—I was four--
            I was eight—I was twelve
 
Then he married—and I was the flower girl
            ​at the wedding
This haunting excerpt unveils the effects of sexual exploitation rooted in a “family secret / ending in shhh.” Che juxtaposes the ordinariness of the speaker’s brother “check[ing] the toast” with the startling image of a child being sexually groomed into adolescence and the perversion of a sanctified marriage. Even so, the distress that sprouts from this experience becomes completely visceral once the speaker explains the molestation in detail:
He lifted his waistband and inserted my hand--
            his trembling fingers,
                        his tentative tongue…
 
—no, no, no--
 
his finger slid
under the white
underwear.
The speaker documents these disturbing acts by dissociating herself from the past in other compositions such as “[Doc, there was a hand],” “Profile,” and “The German word for dream is traume.” Part One summons and confronts the pain of memory as the speaker attempts to reclaim her innocence. By the end of part One, however, the speaker does not attain closure, which is depicted in “Story” when the she confesses, “My child-hand / has not grown up / since then.”
 
Serving as both a chronicle and a memoir, Part Two highlights the trauma of the speaker’s parents—particularly her mother. The speaker transitions from introspection to observance as each poem recalls Vietnamese history and its cyclical nature. Che addresses themes of war, violence, death, and displacement in “Split,” “First Day,” “In every psyche, tiny or dramatic perforations--,” “Daughter,” and “Self-portrait in Summer II.”
 
In “My Mother upon Hearing News of her Mother’s Death,” Che’s speaker is cognizant of inheriting the burdens and trauma of her ancestors:
I leapt into her mouth, her throat, her gut, and stayed inside with the remnants of my former life. I ate the food she ate and drank the milk she drank. I grew until I crowded the furnishings. I edged out her organs, her swollen heart. I grew up and out so large that I became a woman, wearing my mother’s skin.
Che exhibits the double-consciousness of the speaker in this excerpt; the speaker hones in on her own autonomy and compares it to the generations before her—generations that are not only comprised of Vietnamese refugees, but of “village women pick[ing] up their girls” to escape “bị hại” and warfare.

In Part Three, Che’s speaker exhumes the shadows of silence in her epistolary piece, “Letters to Doc.” The speaker says, “I watched as my voice / was pulled from me,” and, in doing so, divulges the vulnerability she felt from being sexually assaulted. Che rewrites the speaker’s story of oppression into an empowering text that is “open / for all to see.”
 
In “Gardenia,” the speaker rhetorically asks, “How must I attend to my life?” before reaching emotional release. The affliction she previously struggled with in parts One and Two is finally resolved in the following lines:
I too can change.
 
Daphne becomes laurel
and is saved from rape.
 
I can crown myself
with my own life.
Che transforms the “memory or a wounding” of the speaker’s rape and “mother’s near rape / [which] was a recurring dream” into an archive of survival.
 
Throughout this collection, Che metaphorizes each line as “a bone / [and] each bone / a story.” Che’s work is a testimony that broaches the subjects of victimhood, violence, and self-validation with prudent sensitivity. The speaker exposes the complexities of the human experience and how inhumane transgressions can leave physical and emotional scars. Che beautifully captures the healing process the speaker undergoes after reopening personal, cultural, and historical wounds. Split is an artifact that bridges the narratives of the past, present, and future and needs to be handled with the respect it deserves.


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Patricia Damocles is the Assistant Managing Editor for Jet Fuel Review who is majoring in English Language & Literature with a minor in Creative Writing. What she strives to achieve as a Jet Fuel editor is to give passionate, aspiring writers a platform to express themselves. As someone who has had the opportunity to be published in a previous issue, she is aware of how empowering it is to have her voice acknowledged in the world of literature. In her free time, she enjoys reading poetry and short stories, and also making memories with her friends, family, and cats.

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  • Home
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  • Issue 22 Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Art Fall 2021 >
      • Bonnie Severien Fall 2021
      • Camilla Taylor Fall 2021
      • Guilherme Bergamini Fall 2021
      • Emanuela Iorga Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Poetry Fall 2021 >
      • Maureen Alsop Fall 2021
      • Annah Browning Fall 2021
      • Romana Iorga Fall 2021
      • Natalie Hampton Fall 2021
      • Sherine Gilmour Fall 2021
      • Adam Day Fall 2021
      • Amanda Auchter Fall 2021
      • Adam Tavel Fall 2021
      • Sara Moore Fall 2021
      • Karen Rigby Fall 2021
      • Daniel Zhang Fall 2021
      • Erika Lutzner Fall 2021
      • Kindall Fredricks Fall 2021
      • Cin Salach Fall 2021
      • Andrew Zawacki Fall 2021
      • Micah Ruelle Fall 2021
      • Rachel Stempel Fall 2021
      • Haley Wooning Fall 2021
      • Rikki Santer Fall 2021
      • Evy Shen Fall 2021
      • Suzanne Frischkorn Fall 2021
      • Danielle Rose Fall 2021
      • Eric Burgoyne Fall 2021
      • John Cullen Fall 2021
      • Maureen Seaton Fall 2021
      • Hannah Stephens Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Nonfiction Fall 2021 >
      • Kevin Grauke Fall 2021
      • Courtney Justus Fall 2021
      • Amy Nicholson Fall 2021
    • Issue #22 Fiction Fall 2021 >
      • Tina Jenkins Bell Fall 2021
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  • Issue 23 Spring 2022
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      • Jonathan Kvassay Spring 2022
      • Karyna McGlynn Spring 2022
      • Andrea Kowch Spring 2022
      • Layla Garcia-Torres Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Poetry Spring 2022 >
      • Robin Gow Spring 2022
      • T.D. Walker Spring 2022
      • Jen Schalliol Huang Spring 2022
      • Yvonne Zipter Spring 2022
      • Carrie McGath Spring 2022
      • Lupita Eyde-Tucker Spring 2022
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      • Erin Carlyle Spring 2022
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      • Phil Goldstein Spring 2022
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      • Jami Macarty Spring 2022
      • Sarah A. Rae Spring 2022
      • Brittney Corrigan Spring 2022
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      • Issam Zineh Spring 2022
      • MICHAEL CHANG Spring 2022
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      • Leah Umansky Spring 2022
      • Cody Beck Spring 2022
      • Danyal Kim Spring 2022
      • Rachel DeWoskin Spring 2022
    • Issue #23 Fiction Spring 2022 >
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  • Issue #24 Fall 2022
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      • Natalie Christensen Fall 2022
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    • Issue #24 Poetry Fall 2022 >
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      • Acadia Currah Fall 2022