Launching The Protection of Ghosts

V. Press is very very delighted to announce the publication of The Protection of Ghosts by Natalie Linh Bolderston.

“The Protection of Ghosts shows how our past can equally haunt and protect us. Here are lyrical poems about intergenerational trauma, familial exile, loss, cultural legacy and hope. In ‘Operation Ranch Hand’, Natalie Linh Bolderston explores how the damage caused by chemical warfare materialises and continues to the present time when a woman ‘does not know about the scar / that is forming inside, that her daughter / will be born wordless on a stretcher.’ The themes of separation and pain are beautifully laced in ‘My mother’s nightmares’ where ‘my mother reaches, / …and I do not know whether I am rising or she is / falling – ’, while a sense of belonging is discovered from the stories passed down to us: ‘…we grew a lot of fruit and greens on the roof. / Always eat with chilli and salt. You try!’ (‘When Bà Ngoại tells stories’). Natalie Linh Bolderston is definitely a distinct and daring voice you would not want to miss.” Romalyn Ante

“In her first pamphlet, Natalie Linh Bolderston portrays the knowledge and care shared among generations of women in poems at once sensory and tender, vivid and emotive. The Protection of Ghosts is a most welcome debut.” V. Press Guest Editor Carrie Etter

The Protection of Ghosts is very haunting and very intricate.

A sample poem from The Protection of Ghosts can be found below.

ISBN: 978-1-9165052-3-0

R.R.P. £6.50

NOW OUT OF STOCK (Dec 2022)

From Bà Cố to Bà Ngoại

Daughter, do not let your feet grow septic with running,

your tongue surrender in your throat.

The country will not know your name.

When your children forget my name, remind them:

I am not just someone who used to love you.

Because you share my bed in times of sickness

and pregnancy, reach for me

as the sun paints you awake.

Con yêu của mẹ, can you hear me?

Remember this when you cradle your daughter

in the early hours, and you want

to throw prayers at the walls

and set the bedposts alight.

Instead, send me a picture of a little girl with frost in her hair

and a face that used to be yours.

When you return from the cold,

show me the shape of the water you crossed,

the blue air in your lungs. 

Bà Cố – great grandmother

Bà Ngoại – maternal grandmother

Con yêu của mẹ – my darling daughter

A previous version of this poem was published in issue 2 of The Good Journal.



LAUNCH EVENTS/READINGS

9 May 2019, 7pm, Burley Fisher Books, London: launch of The Protection of Ghosts in a Covent Garden Stanza ‘mass publication celebration’ at Burley Fisher Books,  400 Kingsland Road, Hackney, London E8 4AA from 7-9pm. Event details here. 

14 June 2019, 8pm, St James Wine Vaults, Bath: launch of The Protection of Ghosts (Natalie Linh Bolderston), The Escapologist (Jinny Fisher), and Spring in the Hospital (Luke Palmer).