A Review by Timmy Trần

As a superstitious person myself, I spent most of my life straying clear from any ghostly activity—such a thing was taboo for me; but in Becoming Ghost (2025), Cathy Linh Che reveals how communing with the deceased can be restorative. Within this poetry collection, Che recollects the personal and established stories of old and new, blending them into a healing conversation of intergenerational trauma in relation to the scars from the U.S. war in Vietnam. Particularly, Becoming Ghost acts as a site of return for ghosts of the past, recentering the focus away from the American fantasization of the Vietnam War to the stories of the refugees who escaped the war. Here, Che draws on her parents’ experiences as extras in Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now (1979), bringing their voices as Vietnamese refugees to the limelight rather than relegating them to the background. Che performs her seance effortlessly, invoking voices of the past to the present, allowing their voices to not only be heard, but to be understood. This practice demonstrates the level of care, dedication, and love that can be evidently seen within Becoming Ghost. 

Within Che’s body of work, Becoming Ghost, I was intrigued and enthralled with the usage of the Golden Shovel form which Che cited as her inspiration, created by Terrance Hayes. This form allows poets to borrow certain lines from an existing medium and use those words to create new lines. In this case, Che uses iconic lines from Francis Ford Coppola and John Milius’ screenplay for the film Apocalypse Now (1979). Here, the words from the screenplay appear at the end of each line of Che’s works. With this form, Che gives more nuance to each word that was categorized as violent and in doing so, takes back the agency and voice of the Vietnamese refugees who were silenced and forced to be caricatures of both villains and victims within the film. In “I love the smell of napalm… [From the hospital bed]”, there is an intimate grief-stricken mourning that the speaker goes through, giving up her son. Focusing on the speaker’s diagnosed love for the boy, she recounts how her body rejected this immense feeling: 

…. I 

was diagnosed with tim yếu. My body betrayed the love 

I had for the boy. Some nights in the 

chirring of crickets, in the smell 

of the damp paddy, I heart the voice of 

my son speak to me in German. A palm 

reader predicted that I would suffer. In 

war, we all suffer. The 

inevitability of this mourning (Che 48).

In contrast to the quote from the film, Che diverts from violence and focuses on a scene that is heartbreaking, a part of war that many survivors feel, in which will haunt them for all their lifetimes. What is most interesting about this poem is that the words at each end of the lines come together to say “Napalm, son, nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning,” which is a terrifying line within the film. In contrast to the quote from the film, Che diverts from violence and focuses on a scene that is heartbreaking, a part of war that many survivors feel, in which will haunt them for all their lifetimes. Within this passage, the smell of the damp paddies juxtaposed with the smell of napalm demonstrates a familial relationship that the speaker has to her land, which would be bombarded by American military ordnance. There is an echo to be heard, where the effects of war causes suffering for all, which also directly contradicts the line “I love the smell of napalm in the morning” from the film. Instead of playing into the fantasy of war, Che focuses on the moments of grief that happen because of the violence. These sincere moments bring the most truth and pain that many do not see nor want to see, but it must be heard and understood. 

In the last poem of the collection, “Zombie Apocalypse Now: The Making of” redirects the American gaze of the war in Vietnam. This shifts the spectacle of violence, unruly patriotism and militarization into a more personal recount of family and intergenerational healing. Within this piece, the speaker actively takes back control of the narrative, back from the American gaze and finds a home to all the ghosts who had roamed across the resilient landscapes of Vietnam. This poem acts as a ritual to bring forth voices of the past, present, and future, and dedicates to them a space to hold and  live. Che reclaims the agency of her family:

I am the director.
          

The zombies don’t look like zombies. 


Just my grandmother,
unable to speak
the flies reanimating
          her body's giving up (Che 104).

No longer do their bodies reflect apocalypse and violence, but love and respect. There is recognition now that we are able to understand who the “zombies” are. They are portrayed as misunderstood creatures that the speaker understands and interprets for us. This reveal of the cast being a family of regular, ordinary people redefines who the zombies are—the speaker’s loved ones. They aren’t monsters, creatures of the night, but people with dreams, hopes, and aspirations. A profound act of love and acknowledgment; being able to understand the situation and opting for empathy rather than fear or frustration. The final lines within Che’s poem recites:

I tell them, 


          Here is the script. Act natural.
          This is the just like the story
          of your lives (Che 104).

This stanza is beautiful and is complemented by an image of her family. Here, the speaker/director prompts their family to be natural, as this new script and film will be a representation of their lives instead of the apocalypse the American gaze would make it to be. 

Che summons ancestral voices through her scrying. With this practice, she presents the voices of the oppressed and silenced, vocalizing and echoing them with the intention of healing. These voices carry the desire for a future—a desire for a place and a home. Becoming Ghost is a site of haunting, but  not one with any malicious intent. Here, haunting is a visitation, a communing with the past, present, and future. It is a place for stories; a place to rest.

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