Linh Dinh

I was born in Vietnam in 1963, came to the U.S. in 1975, and have also lived in Italy and England. I'm the author of two collections of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), five books of poems, All Around What Empties Out (2003), American Tatts (2005), Borderless Bodies (2006), Jam Alerts (2007) and Some Kind of Cheese Orgy (2009), and a novel, Love Like Hate (2010). My work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007 and Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, among many other places. I'm also the editor of the anthologies Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and Three Vietnamese Poets (2001), and translator of Night, Fish and Charlie Parker, the poetry of Phan Nhien Hao (2006). Blood and Soap was chosen by the Village Voice as one of the best books of 2004. My poems, stories and political writing have been translated into Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic and Finnish, and I've been invited to read my works in London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Reykjavik, Toronto and all over the U.S. I've also published widely in Vietnamese.

Postcard from the End of America: Center City, Philadelphia

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Ah, to be in perfect health, good looking, with all the possibilities in the world spread out like an extravagant buffet, begging for your attention!  Should I become a recording star, the next Obama (or Hillary) or precocious billionaire?  Maybe I’ll marry a rich yet good looking one and see the world before I turn 22?  These days, though, a young person’s daydream must meet the sick reality of an economy sinking into quicksand as weighted down Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Silicon Valley

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Decades ago, I’d show up weekly to clean the Philadelphia apartment of a California transplant.  Daughter of a Hollywood executive, Jacqueline confessed she had to escape California because “California women are too beautiful.”  To save her self esteem, she had to flee to Philadelphia. Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Carlisle, Pennsylvania

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Invited to give a reading at Dickinson College, I came to Carlisle, a town of 19,000 people 30 miles from Harrisburg.  Arriving by train, I passed Amish country and saw plows being pulled by horses.  On extremely long clotheslines, single-colored clothes fluttered in the wintry wind.  Rising high and lithographed against the pale sky, they resembled subdued prayer flags.  A white bearded man under a straw hat waved.  Lancaster, Elizabethtown, Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Washington D.C.

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For nearly four years, I lived just 20 miles from Washington, in Annandale, VA, and I worked in D.C. for 9 months.  From my home in Philadelphia, I’ve also gone down to Washington at least a hundred times, so this metropolis should not be alien to me, and yet no American city is more off putting, more unwelcome, more impenetrable, and this, in spite of its obvious physical attractiveness, and here, I’m talking mostly about its Northwest quadrant, Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Passyunk Square, Philadephia

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Writing this piece, I didn’t have to get on any bus or train, but only walk five minutes to see Beth, someone I first met 28 years ago.  Most lives are improbable, I know, but when I listen to Beth talk, I often find myself thinking, That can’t possibly be true, but her facts have always checked out, and her stories consistent, even on a retelling many years later. Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Taylor, Pennsylvania

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The sixteen-year-old’s consciousness was percussive with recorded music, as usual, when the train slammed into him, and it’s not clear, even now, if it was suicide or merely absentmindedness that killed this boy.  (To have your inner life constantly stunted or suffocated is already a form of death, but had he lived, this incipient man may eventually outgrow his three-chord addiction.)  Home in Taylor, Pennsylvania, Chuck Orloski was already in Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: New Orleans

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This time, I got to New Orleans on a bus named Mega, and it also dropped me off at Elysian Fields.  In Nola, there’s a street called Arts, so of course there has to be one named Desire, and Tennessee Williams clearly saw the two as intertwined, thrusting and plunging their bodies against each other.  Of course, death will interrupt this coupling not just finally but every step of the way. Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Wisconsin

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Before we start, I must admit that I didn’t set foot in Wisconsin this time, but only saw it from the train as I crossed it going West, then East.  (I had been to Madison and Milwaukee before.)  This, then, is really a train Postcard, but the long distance train is a community in itself.  In fact, Americans seldom have such thorough conversations as when they’re trapped on a long distance train.  If only more of us could be confined that way, we Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Tri-Cities

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Though this may sound like a joke, it’s certainly no joke, for I’m not a joking type: When I came to the US in 1975, the very first American song I learned was “Old McDonald Had a Farm.” Though I could not properly pronounce any of the words, and understood only half of them, at most, I sang along with all the other kids in Miss Dogen’s class at McKinley Elementary in Tacoma, Washington. To this day, I remember one kid cracking up at me, and if I Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Joliet, Illinois

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The story of Joliet is familiar enough.  With its industries gone, a city turns to the casino as a last ditch salvation, but cannot reverse its decline.  The details of this disintegration, though, can be interesting.  Take two recent crimes.  In one, four people, two men and two women, invited two male friends over for some partying, which in America nearly always involves alcohol and/or drugs and the promise of sex, but the two guests ended up Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Levittown, Pennsylvania

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In 1947, the first Levittown was built in New York State, then in 1952, an even bigger one was erected in Pennsylvania.  Marketed as “THE MOST PERFECTLY PLANNED COMMUNITY IN AMERICA,” Levittown was the prototypical American suburb.  For only $10,990, or $100 down then $67 a month, you could own three bedrooms, two bathrooms, front lawn, back yard and garage, plus access to five Olympic-sized pools, with free swimming and diving lessons thrown Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Manhattan

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Getting off the Greyhound bus at the Port Authority Terminal, I immediately saw a man his mid 50’s digging through a garbage can.  With his right hand, he held a plastic tray on which were placed whatever edible scraps he could find.  Lickable flecks clung to his ample brown beard.  Chewing while scavenging, he was quite leisurely with his task and no one among the many people sitting or standing nearby paid him any attention.  Done with one Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Columbus

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I was in Columbus all of ten hours.  Even downtown, some of the sidewalks were clogged by snow, and as I crossed the Sciotto into Franklinton, my trudging became even more laborious.  Mostly I walked on the side of the street, and on side streets, right in the middle.  From an attic window, a torn American flag hung, and on a garage, there was a crudely drawn handgun, accompanied by “BEWARE I WILL SHOOT.”  I passed a house that was for sale for Continue Reading...

Postcard from the End of America: Chicago

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I’ve been coming to Chicago forever, but always just for a day or two.  The first time was when I was only a teenager and visiting an aunt in St Louis.  Another time, it was to take a physical exam for now-defunct Midway Airlines.  I was trying to get a job as a baggage handler.  The day before, though, I had been at a Philly party where someone handed me a joint.  Never one to refuse heartfelt hospitality, I inhaled, but somehow this didn’t Continue Reading...