Spirit Extracts is the story of Hmong people from the suffering and sacrifices of the Vietnam War to the way the culture and histories are passed down to the new generation of Hmong youths in America. These poems by Leng Moua details not only the breathtaking and humble landscape of rural Laos, but also the loss of this sanctuary as the Hmong people were forced to flee their homes with nothing except their traditions and will to survive. Even as they were scattered across the nation and separated from their loved ones, these poems capture a sense of connectedness, family bonds, and community of Hmong people as each generation share an unspoken feeling of spiritual understanding from the grief their people has endured. Essentially, this book illustrates a story about the credence and perseverance of an exiled peoples where the strength of a community rests upon the connections you are able to make with others and the refusal to forget your history.
In his very first poem, "Alternate Realm," Leng depicts the journey to a foreign land, setting in motion the reader's experience through the rest of his book which delves into the complex traditions of Hmong history and culture. Poems like "Between Locusts and Grasshoppers" and "Back to the Land" explore the landscape further as Leng creates a nostalgic yet painful picture of Laos with images of children playing and barbed wires juxtaposing one another. These moments of sacrifice and survival are displayed more profoundly in poems like "Flowers Grow on Skin and Bones," "Apparition," and "Cut Journey" as he employs more visceral language to show the violence Hmong people faced during their flight for life. These images connote the fact that even though the younger generation of Hmong children didn't experience the pain of war themselves, they are reminded of the sacrifices their elders made as they enjoy a life with their freedom.
Much like the elders pass on their traditions by telling their stories, Leng is also passing on historical knowledge through his exploration of the Hmong people's past; however, this book also shows the ways in which the new generation grapple with the dual identity of being a first-generation Hmong American. Poems like "I Should Know," "Suab Ntsov Thaum Tuag (Death Cry)," "Crossing," "Culture" depict how first-generation children accept the ways of old traditions, but there is still a generational gap between the parents and grandparents who endured a war and their children who has never known such pain. Ideals start to shift, creating communication barriers between the old and the young, but these poems also connote that as each generation sheds off a new skin, there is still hope in the future for the Hmong youth to persevere with the sacrifices made for them.
This hope for and progression towards the future is illustrated in poems like "Men Stood," "My Mother's Faith," and "Chicken Dinner" where Leng writes from his own perspective as he observes and actively participates in the traditions taught to him by his mother and father. These poems emphasize the communal, and core, element to Hmong culture as family, belief, and deep respect are shown through the way he doesn't question his parents' traditional Hmong practices, but he is still spiritually uplifted by their unspoken determination to the Hmong culture. However, his poems "Domestic Issues" and "Jetlag" make a final point that the Hmong people are not perfect, but they are forever evolving, exploring, and expanding. Hmong people come from a painful history of blood, but through this journey, they've acquired everlasting strength. This spiritual power can be felt from generation to generation even as they move further from their past and closer to the future the elders envisioned for them as they left everything behind, including their homeland.
