The Rumpus Reviews New Li-Young Lee Collection

Get acquainted with Li-Young Lee's newest collection of poetry, The Undressing, by way of Derek Jg Williams's review at The Rumpus. "Bare skin stretches and rests underneath scant garments in The Undressing, Li-Young Lee’s latest collection of poems," Williams writes. From there: 

With clothes heaped at the foot of the bed, the book’s title gestures toward the first and second skins Lee has so often plumbed in previous collections like Rose and The City in Which I Loved You. These skins are the difference between what occurs publicly and privately. They’re the difference between the backyard of a home and its bedrooms. For Lee, both can be equally erotic. Yet the backyard cannot exist without the intimacy of the bedroom. The relationship between the lover and the beloved in these spaces is the central tension around which his text orients itself. The book’s dedication makes this clear, since it’s written “For The Lovers / And The Manifold Beloved.” The presence of God underlies all of the book’s action. The God presented is both a witness, as well as one of the highest expressions of love. We readers search with Lee’s speakers, delighting in revelations that are holy and intimate to the gentle touch of our eyes.

The manner of love vaunted in Lee’s poems isn’t one of mere pleasure. It’s far more complicated and Lee is a better poet than that. In the long title poem, which is the first poem in the collection, the speaker (or lover) seduces the beloved. Their conversation is at once physical and metaphysical. It plays out between their bodies but it’s also their essences, or spirits, that speak.

Read on at The Rumpus.