WORD LISTS

"Inside Out & Back Again" by Thanhha Lai, Part 1

Tue Apr 15 18:48:00 EDT 2014
By Vocabulary.com (NY)Visual Thesaurus Moderator
Fleeing to America to escape the Vietnam War, Hà and her family end up in Alabama, where they must adapt to a new culture. This novel in verse was inspired by author Thanhha Lai's own experiences.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
incense
This day
Mother prepares an altar
to chant for his return,
offering fruit,
incense,
tuberoses,
and glutinous rice.
glutinous
This day
Mother prepares an altar
to chant for his return,
offering fruit,
incense,
tuberoses,
and glutinous rice.
embroider
Now I am ten, learning
to embroider circular stitches,
to calculate fractions into percentages,
to nurse my papaya tree to bear many fruits.
imitation
Brother Vū screams, Ha Yà,
and makes me jump
every time
he breaks wood or bricks
in imitation of Bruce Lee.
communist
But when we keep talking about
how close the Communists
have gotten to Saigon,
how much prices have gone up
since American soldiers left,
how many distant bombs
were heard the previous night,
Miss Xinh finally says no more.
justify
Brother Quang says,
One cannot justify war
unless each side
flaunts its own
blind conviction.
chide
Wish Mother would stop
chiding me to stay calm,
which makes it worse.
podium
We stand in line;
for even longer
we sit on hot metal benches
facing the podium.
rickety
I will not risk
fleeing with my children
on a rickety boat.
slogan
Hà will come home
chanting the slogans
of Hô Chí Minh,
and Khôi will be rewarded
for reporting to his teacher
everything we say in the house.
monsoon
We pretend
the monsoon
has come early.
reproduce
The tired worm
reproduces much more slowly
at the end of the day
than at the beginning
when Mother started
the first of five bags.
pact
Mother tells me
she and Father have a pact.
gaunt
Who can go against
a mother
who has become gaunt like bark
from raising four children alone?
horde
Hordes pour
by us,
beyond us.

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