A Plucked Zither explores what happens to language and thus emotions and relationships under conditions of migration, specifically refugee migration from Vietnam, and its aftermath.
Rather than being sunken with loss, the speaker(s) move with it, leaping across gaps..
Vuong leans on the anti-war Vietnamese singer and songwriter, Trịnh Công Sơn, for a poetic lineage on grief, longing, and justice.
Efforts to speak reflect the severing created by historical forces of war and imperialism, while speaking makes connection possible and remains tied to that very history. and home in Vietnam, the speaker tries non-linear, multilingual voice(s) that demonstrates the disparate nature of memory and the operation of other ways of knowing.
Crisscrossing between making a home in the U.
S.
A Plucked Zither explores what happens to language and thus emotions and relationships under conditions of migration, specifically refugee migration from Vietnam, and its aftermath
