Phyla of Joy
Poems by Karen An-hwei Lee
"Karen An-hwei Lee’s third book is a beautiful and sustained meditation
on the impermanence of humanity’s essential components: memory, spirituality,
emotion, thought. These are the fleeting fires of the soul, she tells
us, but they’re the 'mortal ephemera' worth living for. Lee 'turns on
the light' in these poems to mourn and memorialize the 'graceful senescence'
of the body, the world, and even the word. Contemplative and linguistically
sophisticated, Phyla of Joy is simply exquisite -- 'ink and
stanza / flow like wind on grass.'"
-- Rigoberto González
"Karen An-hwei Lee’s masterful and vivacious poems are testaments to what Lee calls in one poem “the abundance of desire.” Like few other poets, Lee renders the particulars of this world with exquisite precision. But at the same time, she attends to metaphysical, otherworldly realms, those mysterious spaces we encounter when we acknowledge our desire for love and for divinity. Phyla of Joy makes clear Karen An-hwei Lee’s crucial and enduring contribution to contemporary poetry." -- Peter Campion
Phyla of Joy by Karen An-hwei Lee
Tupelo Press
Publication date: February 29, 2012
Price: $16.95
Paperback, 78 pages.
ISBN: 978-1-932195-14-9
To order: orders@tupelopress.org
www.tupelopress.org