"Phan Nhien Hao's Paper Bells, in Hai-Dang Phan's supple yet muscular translations, are a dirt-scuffed bus window mirroring an exile's face, the America he finds himself in, and the Vietnam he left: 'Summer in Seattle, I remember Da Lat.' A gritty yet dreamy poet-prophet writing in the margins of empire, Hao knows 'History is a series of seizures.'"
—Phil Metres

"With Paper Bells, Phan Nhien Hao tunes his panoptic scope to the fine line between terror and rhapsody, capturing those uncanny moments which reflect both the observations of a survivor and immigrant, as well as the perceptions of someone gifted with the ability to be present in multiple planes of existence. As a child born into war and flight, Phan has learned to 'try to stay calm at / all costs.' He writes that he is 'a / miner inside a cave that has collapsed, everyone escaped. Not a soul knows I've survived.' The world which opens in solitude is what Phan offers in this collection: it is at once remarkable, inevitable, and astonishing. His words are those which I unknowingly sought during my own upbringing in the United States as a child of former Vietnamese refugees, and though I did not encounter them then, I am grateful to have this essential work in my life now. Perhaps '[o]ur time is up to stay longer / inside each other,' but I know that Phan's work has settled into my bones, and I herald its arrival."
—Diana Khoi Nguyen