My research examines poetry in Vietnam as a lived, social practice rather than solely a literary form. In my dissertation, Recitation Nation, I explore how poetry is recited and performed across classrooms, radio, and community spaces. Historically, poetry has played a central role in modern Vietnamese state formation, from its use in revolutionary movements to its continued presence in national education and cultural policy. Building on this history, I combine literary and ethnographic approaches to examine how poetry recitation, đọc thơ (reading poetry) and ngâm thơ (melodic, rhythmically sung poetry) function not simply as artistic expression, but as forms of collective participation.

This research also challenges persistent assumptions that recitation and memorization constitute passive or “rote” learning. Instead, I show how these practices are socially embedded forms of knowledge production through which historical consciousness and aesthetic sensibility are cultivated collectively. In doing so, the project pushes against colonial and global intellectual hierarchies that have devalued embodied, relational, and oral modes of knowing.

Based on 18 months of fieldwork in Hồ Chí Minh City, I situate Vietnamese poetry-making within conversations about postsocialist cultural production and the global creative economy. While contemporary frameworks often define creativity in terms of innovation and market value, my work shows how poetic practice in Vietnam foregrounds relationality, repetition, and collective participation. By theorizing poetry as a commons, Recitation Nation contributes to anthropological debates on nationalism, education, and cultural practice in the postsocialist, global South.