[1] She has received the Academy of American Poets University Prize,[4] as well as awards and scholarships from Key West Literary Seminars, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, and Bucknell University.
[2] In the foreword, Terrance Hayes called it a collection of “exile and elegy.”[7] Nguyen says Ghost Of was written for everyone affected by the Vietnam War, including her family and her brother Oliver, who took his own life in 2014.
[9] Publishers' Weekly said of Ghost Of: "Though devastating, Nguyen’s impressive lyrico-visual rendering details survival despite overwhelming tragedy.
"[10] The Kenyon Review said: "Nguyen’s book feels populated not so much by 'experimental' poetry as by poetry that is shaped by suffering; the poems are the exact shape they have to be to accommodate, and attempt to bear, the weight of tragedy...One of the most compelling aspects about this elegy is the dispensation of melodrama that so often accompanies great pain.
"[11] Booklist said in a review: "Haunting, incisive, and exceptionally spare, Nguyen’s shape-shifting poems confront death, displacement, and the emptiness within and around us.