A Playlist for Poetry’s November 2016 Issue

Cover art by Jessie Mott

For our November 2016 playlist, we asked contributor Vi Khi Nao to curate a selection of music for us. You can read about her approach to creating the playlist below. Click here to open the playlist in your Spotify app.

It would be too much for me narrate why I selected these 18 songs. Originally, I was going to compile a sample list of the music palette of my previous and current lovers. But such a palette languishes in Iowa, in a storage unit in the middle of nowhere, and I can’t seem to have the will or strength to trace back to their sonic memory or ardor. I will tell you about one particular selection titled, “Gọi Người Yêu Dấu.” It’s one of my mother’s favorite songs and I think the story of the song goes something like this: a married man had fallen in love and impregnated a young country girl. The girl’s family shipped the pregnant girl to Đà Lạt to conceal her gravid state. The man would travel long distances to visit her during the cold months in the capital of Lâm Đồng Province. The man’s wife secretly followed his dalliance and during one of her furtive visits, she witnessed her unfaithful husband’s unbearable tenderness towards the young girl. It was the scene of him on his knees removing or donning her socks. The wife asked her husband discreetly to come home to raise his already existing children with her and he went home and never returned. It was known later that the pregnant girl remained a charged, passionate place in his heart for the rest of his life and he considered her to be the only love of his life despite not ever seeing her again.

You can find past playlists here.