I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review

When I began isn't clear, but isn't it obvious that
we always had a knack
for stories about little girls in danger?

Buffalo Girl was the exploring and working through emotions and traumas caused by sexism, racism, war, losing cultural connections, and a mother and daughter relationship in poetic prose. The book was divided into three sections that dealt with the effects of relationships, mother and daughter, mother and father, and outside influences, background on mother's lived experience, and finally the jarring experience of leaving Vietnam and living in America.

Let's find a way out of here
let's take apart the woods

While the prose was poetry, there was also a telling of story through the lens of the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. The author draws from the lesson of little girls needing to be wary of wolves and applied it to the dangers her mother faced in Vietnam. While the book mainly deals with the lived experiences of the author and her mother, there was also some historical cultural tie-ins with mentions of the Trung Sisters, Trần Lệ Xuân, and Triệu Thị Trinh (Buffalo Girl), relating to the shared experience of these women throughout the times, the type of violence women experience.

If she couldn't become a new dawn, she'd settle for a buffalo.

Throughout the book there was also collage pictures, made up of the author's mother's old photographs taken, the author's photos of plants and flowers, and drawings of Little Red Riding Hood. I thought the applying of the Little Red fairy tale was an interesting way to explore and comment on societal acceptance and ignoring of violence woman are subjected to and how indoctrination works. My favorite poem was The Furies and a few poem lines about how they were living in America after the Vietnam War and how her mother saw men who would be considered war criminals in Vietnam, being lauded and celebrated as heroes. The anger and pain came through at points, for what the mother lived through and how it caused the author to lose important cultural ties but also the endurance and strength of the author, her mother (her sense of humor), and women in general. Overall, this was an effective artistic expression of loss, pain, anger but also strength and endurance. ( )

This collection of poetry focuses mainly on the author's mother. Her life in Vietnam and in the states. Her many joys, trials and tribulations. Solidly written. ( )

If only for the poem "Impact Sport," this would be 5 stars. That & other poems here are fantastic, brutal meditations on femininity, including a cycle on Little Red Riding Hood. I'm not a huge fan of erasure poetry (which could very well be my own weakness rather than the form's) and about half of this book is erasure poetry, so I took a star off for all of that. ( )