ANCESTRAL ALTARS
poems by
The past lives on in the present and the dead speak through the living. This is the central experience that unites the three parts of Ancestral Altars, a work in progress. One section consists of poems inspired by the work of Binh Danh, the Vietnamese-American artist who develops photographs on leaves by photosynthesis. The images Binh Danh inscribes-by natural means-on the leaves of living plants have included famous photographs of the Vietnam War and portraits by which captives in Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge death camps were catalogued by their captors.
A second series includes poems adapted from prose passages found in works as disparate as Thoreau's Walden and William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience. Additional poems treat a variety of subjects, including Walt Whitman's "Butterfly Portrait," a profusion of forsythia overhanging a rock wall, and a nighttime visit to the Vietnam War Memorial.
Poems in Ancestral Altars have appeared in journals such as The Virginia Quarterly Review, Subtropics, Northwest Review, The Hudson Review, New York Quarterly and on Scribners' BEST AMERICAN POETRY blog.
Additional Links
"Faces Fleshed in Green," The Virginia Quarterly Review
"Reflective" on The Best American Poetry blog