The Undressing

by Li-Young Lee

Overview

“Immediate, sensual, unrelentingly intense.” —NPR

A breathtaking volume about the violence of desire and the peace of love from celebrated poet Li-Young Lee, The Undressing is a tonic for spiritual anemia; it attempts to uncover things hidden since the dawn of the world. Short of achieving that end, these mysterious, unassuming poems investigate the human violence and dispossession increasingly prevalent around the world, and the horrors the poet grew up with as a child of refugees. Lee draws from disparate sources including the Old Testament, the Dao De Jing, and the music of the Wu-Tang Clan. While the ostensive subjects of these layered, impassioned poems are wide-ranging, their driving engine is a burning need to understand our collective human mission.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393635010
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/20/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	80
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Li-Young Lee’s verse has earned numerous honors, including a Lannan Literary Award, a Paterson Poetry Prize, and an American Book Award. Lee lives in Chicago.

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2018
This fifth book from William Carlos Williams Award winner Lee (Book of My Nights) elucidates his family's history and the sometimes violent circumstances surrounding their escape from China to Indonesia as political refugees finally settling in the United States in 1964. Lee's background as a Presbyterian minister lends great spiritual deftness and an ecclesiastical quietude that proves refreshing. Between deeply moving accounts of his relationship to his family, especially his mother and their shared unspoken trauma, Lee outlines the seductions of love and death, how both hold us in similar thrall. While one might be forgiven for seeing the multipage title poem, an account of a man undressing a woman who seems uninterested in his sexual advances, as a bit tone deaf given the current conversation surrounding sexual assault, in all, the poems that follow deepen the metaphor beyond a shallow sexual angle with spiritual, familial, and cultural dimensions. VERDICT Lee's stillness and clarity alone, based on their rarity in contemporary poetry, make this a collection worth having. Add to that the depth of history, memory, and familial trauma and one is left with a stunning addition to an oeuvre already widely and deservedly appreciated.—Trevor Ketner, Junior Library Guild

Library Journal

"[Lee] presents breath-catching metaphysical equations in incantatory cadences that swing between earth and sky, flesh and holiness. . . . [An] exquisite, enthralling, and ringing call to wind, trees, sea, the beloved, and love, both human and sacred."

starred Booklist

"Few poets write like Li-Young Lee these days, facing the biggest and broadest questions head on. . . . Fewer still ask these questions so well, and so movingly. . . . Utterly true poetry."

Los Angeles Times - Craig Morgan Teicher

"Immediate, sensual, unrelentingly intense."

NPR

"The poems emerge with their simplicity and complexity intact. In a word, they are heartfelt, without condescension. It’s the triumph of sincerity over authenticity. . . . Lee’s elegance transports us into the aspirations of yearning."

American Poetry Review

"Potent and mysterious. . . . [Lee] pivots confidently among registers, speakers, and languages. . . . Countless gorgeous details provide, in poem after poem, distinct delights."

The New Yorker - Dan Chiasson

"Erotic. . . . Throughout this multilayered book, [Lee] challenges readers to think and feel more deeply."

Elizabeth Lund

"A heart-rending collection of poems that tackle love and violence with equal curiosity."

Chicago Review of Books