For Diana Khoi Nguyen, poetry means possibility.
After reading e.e. cummings in fifth grade, Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese refugees, discovered a space beyond the expectations of her strict upbringing.
“I saw that poetry could be playful,” said Nguyen, now an assistant professor in the Writing Program in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.
“I was delighted to see cummings breaking all the rules and grammar I was taught in school — his words scattered across the page felt organic. It liberated me,” she said.
Today, Nguyen reinforces the same sense of expansiveness and freedom in the classroom. Though she teaches poetry classes, she says her focus is teaching poetics as a way of being in the world.
— Nichole Faina