Features

PBS NewsHour:: If the walls of an immigration detention center could speak by Mary Jo Brooks, October 2016. Reprinted in WNYC.

Colorado Public Radio:: Denver Poet Imagines the Lost Voices of Female Chinese Immigrants with Ryan Warner, November 2016.

The New Yorker:: The Lost Poetry of the Angel Island Detention Center by Beenish Ahmed, February 2017.

High Country News:: An island from the past by Anna V. Smith, February 2017.

Poetry Voice:: Episode 11, Angels in the Architecture with Kierstin Bridger and Uche Ogbuji, September 2017.

Interviews

Confluence Denver with Laura Bond, May 2016.
“Islanders is based on historical document, the veracity of nonfiction, and the research that entailed. But instead of telling a straight history — which has already been done — I reached for fiction’s imagination and invention.”

The Toast with Nicole Chung, May 2016.
“Early in the writing of the book, I wrote in my notes, ‘What are the intimate consequences of political decisions?’… Our politics shape the ways we live and love.”

The Cloudy House with Cynthia Marie Hoffman, May 2016.
“Islanders focuses on a nation and a race, but the underlying sentiments are not particular to America or the Chinese. … It is my hope that Islanders transcends this history and asks larger questions on migration and belonging.”

The Fem with Autumn Spriggs, May 2016.
“I saw that art is a means of survival. In a way, the Angel Island poems gave me permission to be a writer.”

The Binder Book List with Julia Phillips, July 2016.
“The sea becomes a metaphor for both prison and possibility… These tensions between landscape and history shaped the voices in my poems.”

Tinderbox Editions with Molly Sutton Kiefer, August 2016.
“The stakes are higher when you write shadow histories and challenge dominant narratives. I had to ask myself why I wanted to tell this story and how I could be fair to the people whose lives I depicted – including those who were on the wrong side of history.”

Reviews

PANK by Jimi Sharpe, March 2016.
“Goh builds a world so rich that it moves past history into something alive, at a time when it stands as a crucial addition to America’s cultural conversation.”

At the Inkwell by Benjamin Schmitt, May 2016.
“But it is also a book concerned with how all of us, on each side of every border, is struggling through the force of history.”

Tweetspeak Poetry by Glynn Young, May 2016.
“I wasn’t quite prepared for the sorrow and tragedy these women experienced. Nor was I prepared for watching how, far too often, hope was transformed into fear, heartbreak, and sometimes tragedy.”

The Fem by Vanesa Pacheco, July 2016.
“At the heart of each poem Goh places the voice of an immigrant – one that has always been cast aside as nothing more than alien.”

Life on Capitol Hill by Jason McKinney, August 2016.
“In Islanders, unendurable loss and suffering are often spoken of, and underlying secrets are hinted at, but the reader can only guess at true meaning.”

Kendra Olsen by Kendra Olsen, September 2016.
“She empathises with both the out-of-work labourers as well as the Chinese immigrants who’ve come to carve out a new life.”

Immigrant Report by Christina Roman, May 2017.
“Although published before the recent election, these disparate voices echo even louder now… The rhetoric of the ban and fear of immigrants today is an easy parallel to the history of Angel Island.”

Mentions

Mary Carroll-Hackett:: Monday Must Read, March 2016.

303 Magazine:: Can’t Miss Events This Week by Patricia McCrystal, May 2016.

Comune-info:: Parole di cenere nell’Isola dell’Angelo (in Italian) by Maria G. Di Rienzo, May 2016.

Poets & Writers:: Denver City Guide by Jenny Shank, June 2016.

303 Magazine:: The First Annual Lit Crawl Denver Brings Out Unique Literary Voices by Lindsay Vandewart, September 2016.

Angry Asian Man:: 2016 Asian American Poetry Books and Chapbooks by Bryan Thao Worra, December 2016.

Poetry Voice:: Episode 7 with Kierstin Bridger and Uche Ogbuji, March 2017.