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Do you have a special tote or bag that you use for your current reads so you can bring them places? I was so thankful to receive this wishlist bag last year for my birthday. It has served me well! #booktalk #bookcommunity #bookbag
The Undressing: Poems | 
Do you have a special tote or bag that you use for your current reads so you can bring them places? I was so thankful to receive this wishlist bag last year for my birthday. It has served me well! #booktalk #bookcommunity #bookbag
so-soFact: I like my mac & chz a little soupy.
Fact: I prefer to eat almost everything with a spoon.
Fact: Mac & chz is a terrible symbolic accompaniment to these poems; its casual, easy, childish nature doesn‘t match the vibe *at all.*
Fact: When one of Lee‘s poems hit me, it *really* hit me! I LOVED a handful of verses. I didn‘t dislike any of them. Many, however, though GOOD, passed me by without nudging that unnameable thing in my soul. 🤷♀️
“The Word hosts our breath, our span, the space of our dreaming and our thinking, our stillness and our moving. And the emerging present is one of its bodies.”
One thing I love about this collection is that it reminds me of my academic past. I was a double major: English Literature (with a focus on American Lit) & Religious Studies (with a focus on nothing/everything). One of my favorite ideas (from Hinduism) was: “The world is God‘s body.” 💕🌍
Did I have to look up every, single part of “endogenous balsam, camphor, & myrrh, words?” to understand it (everything from the definition of “endogenous”, to the medicinal uses of herbs & oils, to biblical references)?
Yes.
Was it worth it?
Also, yes.
Sometimes, Lee makes you work for it.
#poemsbeforephones
Li-Young Lee knows how to manipulate language & make it work for him. THIS is wordplay at its most serious!
“Each day, less leaves
in the tree outside my window.
More leave, and every day
more sky...
Day after shortening day, more
day in my panes...”
#poemsbeforephones
#poemsbeforephones: still going strong. 💪🏻
pick⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I didn‘t care much for the title poem. Other than that, there were some beautiful, haunting, thought-provoking, and troubling poems in this book with lines that I will gladly revisit so they can stick to my soul.
Although I enjoyed this, I didn‘t feel quite as mesmerized by Lee‘s words in this collection as I did by Rose, the previous work I read of his.
so-soSparse. Some gems some went right over my head. There‘s a certain kind of poem I enjoy and sadly the ones in this were mostly not it.
#poetry
Funny. Each night that I fall asleep to the sound of rain,
I think I'll wake up the following morning in a meadow,
Part of an old stone wall,
robed in clover,
a willow king at the scarecrow ball.
#poetrychallenge2018
Today, tomorrow, and yesterday, the forecast calls for more misery, more poverty, more starvation, more families fleeing their homes, more refugees streaming toward every border. More horror is to come, that's the word. More scapegoating is to come, that's the word. More violence is to come on the roads, in the streets, in the homes, violence.
All against all is to come.
That's the word.
#poetrychallenge2018
pickI can't say enough about how much I liked this poetry collection. The poems are about desire, belonging, and family. My favorites are "Love Succeeding" and "Sandalwood," but the longer title poem is pretty unforgettable. I had an eARC from the publisher and the title is out February 20.
