"Ash" by Vivian Tran: A Poem about Human Existence (Memory, Time, and Space)

We're back for part three of our six-part series in Season 2 of Voices from the Sky! This week, we welcome Vivian Tran, who in our last episode introduced us to her poem "Ash," which was originally published in Issue 9 (Summer 2019) of Sky Island Journal. 

Vivian Tran is a former nuclear physicist with undergraduate degrees from MIT. She currently writes for engineers and lives in the Bay Area. She is an aspiring poet, and Sky Island Journal is the first literary journal her poetry has appeared in.

In this episode, she takes recounts her early years of writing and journaling, her memories with family and her education at MIT, and how it all shaped the published writer she has become. We also go into the origins and multi-faceted message of the featured poem, "Ash."

Here is the link to a poem we discuss in addition to "Ash." This additional poem, "Here We Are," is one that Vivian collaborated on with her writing instructor from MIT, Erica Funkhouser, which was written as a memorial to Officer Sean Collier following the tragedy of the 2013 Boston Marathon: https://cmsw.mit.edu/here-we-are-poem-mit-memorial-sean-collier/

Join us next week as we feature another one of our favorite pieces and writers from Sky Island Journal. You can enjoy more incredible works of poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction from writers all over the globe at: https://www.skyislandjournal.com

You can enjoy more incredible works of poetry, flash fiction, and creative nonfiction from writers all over the globe at: https://www.skyislandjournal.com