Whorled

by Ed Bok Lee

What does it mean to be a Global Citizen in an era of constant war, rampant industrialization, and ever-advancing technology? Lees ever-wandering cultural and spiritual nomads struggle to make sense of what it means to be a citizen of an increasingly homeless world. In a world where "all love is immigrant," Whorled confronts and celebrates the many complications of global politics through meditations on war, migration, and culture. In settings from San Francisco to Seoul, the Midwest to Kazakhstan, Ed Bok Lee considers what it means to be a citizen in a world where "you can't win the past / or stalk redemption."Raised in South Korea, North Dakota, and Minnesota, Ed Bok Lee is the author of Real Karaoke People, which won the PEN Open Book Award. He is an assistant professor at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Genres: Poetry, Asian American, Asian Literature

118 pages, Paperback

First published August 23, 2011

About the author

Bok Lee was raised in South Korea, North Dakota, and Minnesota. He is a former physical education teacher, bartender, journalist, and translator. He holds a Master’s of Fine Arts degree from Brown University, and has shared his work in journals, anthologies, at colleges, and on stages across North American, Europe, and Asia, as well as on public television and radio.

His first book, Real Karaoke People, was a national bestseller in poetry and the winner of a Many Voices Prize, an Asian American Literary Award and a PEN/Open Book Award.

Bok Lee’s second book, Whorled, was released in September 2011 and is one of four finalists for this year’s Minnesota Book Award in the Poetry category. In Whorled, Bok Lee looks toward a global future, one where the dividing lines between state, religion, race, history, and culture have been blurred to the extent that they very idea of difference requires a new understanding. What does it mean to be a Global Citizen in an era of constant war, rampant industrialization, and ever-advancing technology? Whorled strives to give a voice to those left out with words of loss and longing, confrontation and celebration.

Reviews

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I think I like the first three-quarters of the book more than the last quarter in my pocket.

[Barb Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful poetic imagery. Carefully crafted use of sound effects.

[Ingrid · Rating 4 out of 5]

He has a powerful and unique perspective on racism in Minnesota as well as generational trauma. While I find his verse a bit clunky in some of the pieces, I would recommend this book to anyone, especially now.

[RC Brophy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ed Bok Lee's ability to transform words into an energy that is less read than absorbed into the consciousness is unlike anything I've experienced before. This energy now one with my own propels me to view all with new eyes.

[Isaurathewriter · Rating 5 out of 5]

talented and smart Twin Cities poet

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/4 stars

[Karsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew! Loved these. Read them aloud and wished I could have had them read aloud to me.

In fact, I'll remember this book when speech season comes--the right student could make several of these poems sing in the Serious Poetry category...

For the student with the right cocktail of courage and empathy, "If in America," about Chai Vang, the hunter who shot 8 other hunters in Wisconsin in 2004. The MPR story about this event begins, "Wisconsin officials are trying to understand why a hunter opened fire on other hunters Sunday, killing six people and seriously wounding two." This poem has the same project and does understand probably as well as anyone could.

For the student with an articulate voice, a heart out of time, and some Slam Enthusiasm, "Whorled," a letter to the future about the languages that will have been lost by then and what else will get lost with them.

And possibly for a student with a myth-sized imagination and a compassionate eye for innocent, small-part victims in larger dramas, "Mnemonikos: A Foreigner's Figment," which retells a story of the Greek Poet Simonides. In Lee's telling, he is cast out of King Sopas's palace because his poem did not praise the king enough, which spares his life because the palace collapses that night. When he is called back to identify the guests for whom he had performed, he especially--and tenderly--remembers the face of a nameless serving girl.

I hope I get the chance to coach these to life. They deserve to be heard.

[B.B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meeting Ed Bok Lee in person when he visited my college for a reading was cool. His book? Not so much. I mean, I get it - it's flowy and deep and intense. But what do those attributes mean when you can't put coherent thoughts to them? While some of his poems are understandable, must of them are not. What am I reading here when I trail my eyes across the words he throws together? His Korean heritage? Which is another fault I'd like to point out, not in and of itself as a thought, but because he uses it to bash white people. As a white person, I'm offended. Maybe that was what he was going for, but coming and speaking to a room full of small-town Caucasians about how bad we are is not really a winning thing to do, especially if you want us to buy your book which is also full of hatred for the white community. Having to buy this book for college was the only reason I did, by the way. But at least he signed it just for me. He also told me he liked my name. This is why I give his book two stars when really it deserves one.

[Ben Siems · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the word 'poetry' suggests to you love sonnets and Emily Dickinson, this book may not be for you. Incredibly intense, incredibly blunt and honest in its portrayal of prejudice, class antagonism, linguistic elitism, globalization as a force of cultural annihilation, and in general, the raw underbelly of twenty-first century earth, Whorled is poetry as gut-punch, par excellence.

The interweaving of autobiographical vignettes with the poems strengthens the impact of the book further, making it all very, very real.

The truth can hurt. In Whorled, Ed Bok Lee makes sure that it does.

[Paul]

Review at asianamlitfans.

[William Reichard · Rating 3 out of 5]

there is a real sense of cohesion here - the poems flow well from one to the next, from section to section. the work is very narratively driven, with story sometimes overtaking language.

[Kris Bigalk · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best poetry books I read this year!

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful...a book of poems that showed me how different, similar, complex, and lovable we are. Thank you Ed for this book...