The Selkie

Morgan Võ

Morgan Võ's fascinating and highly original debut, The Selkie, is organized into three linked sections: animated by jokes, confusion, existential horror and banality, often revealing the gaps in understanding that tangle this string of vignettes. In an outdoor market, we meet an unlikely hero in The Monger, buying and selling fish from his stall while the poems around him touch on topics of racial capitalism, cultural ties to animals and food, dislocation, diaspora and the impacts of the nuclear family. Also included are The Monger's own written documents that propose a series of year-long performance pieces, each seemingly created to test and explore his specific individuality among a community of displaced histories. Võ investigates how the shadows of larger global issues link with our intimate and daily interactions. The Selkie introduces an entirely unique voice within the landscape of contemporary American poetry.

Morgan Vo (born 1989) is a poet and librarian, and a current member of the Poetry Project Newsletter editorial collective. His poems have most recently appeared in the Brooklyn Rail and Wyrm. Originally from coastal Virginia, he lives now in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.