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How Do I Look?
Through a series of flash poetry/non-fiction pieces, Sennah Yee’s debut full-length book How Do I Look? paints a colourful portrait of a woman both raised and repelled by the media. With pithy, razor-sharp prose, Sennah dissects and reassembles pop culture through personal anecdotes, crafting a love-hate letter to the media and the microaggressions that have shaped how she sees herself and the world. How Do I Look? is a raw and vulnerable reflection on identities real and imagined.
- GenresPoetry
84 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2017
1 person is currently reading
840 people want to read
About the author
Sennah Yee
7 books21 followersSennah Yee is from Toronto, where she writes poetry, prose, and film criticism.
She is the author of the poetry collection How Do I Look? (Metatron Press), and the children’s books My Day With Gong Gong (Annick Press, Blue Spruce Award Nominee) and Lin’s Lucky Red Envelope (Holt Renfrew commission).
She is the co-creator and managing editor of the pop culture journal In The Mood Magazine.
She is the producer of the feature films Withdrawn (2017) and Retrograde (2022), which both premiered at Slamdance Film Festival.
She is the author of the poetry collection How Do I Look? (Metatron Press), and the children’s books My Day With Gong Gong (Annick Press, Blue Spruce Award Nominee) and Lin’s Lucky Red Envelope (Holt Renfrew commission).
She is the co-creator and managing editor of the pop culture journal In The Mood Magazine.
She is the producer of the feature films Withdrawn (2017) and Retrograde (2022), which both premiered at Slamdance Film Festival.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
June 26, 2025
This was a collection of stunning poems that read like micro-memoirs. They touch on themes like racism and queerness while making connections to iconic millennial media like The Sims and Gilmore Girls. This was a quick read but definitely an impactful one. I will be keeping an eye out for more work from this writer!
January 31, 2023
es literalmente una tía chulísima hablando de lo miserable y divertida que puede ser la vida y lo racista que puede ser la peña y me ha encantado todo o sea iba a posit por página aprox😭 mr ha gustado mucho su manera de expresarse y cómo te hablaba un texto sobre el GTA y al siguiente un poema de esos que te destrozan el espíritu y el alma con dos míseras frases
April 5, 2023
this was so so good and i want to read it again and eat it
February 4, 2023
"Tener ojos solo para ti es una forma sofisticada de decir que soy ciega"
December 25, 2023
Se me caen las lagrimitas 🥹💘
April 17, 2023
Gracias Javi mis favoritos son el de los Sims, el de vestir muñecas virtuales, el de la concha y el de Flora 🫂
February 17, 2023
La edición de este libro es tan agradable que me hace realmente feliz
December 4, 2022
Sobre sentirse fuera de sitio o sentir que eres desterrada constantemente de dos países a la vez. Qué agotador debe de ser, y más si al racismo le sumas el machismo inevitable. Y la tía te lo cuenta con una prosa poética tan sencilla y sutil como fresca y punzante.
February 5, 2023
Duelo de navajas entre lo pop y la identidad disidente. El texto sabe a chicle y a llevar los pies descalzos y el pelo mojado con la ventanilla bajada. Es de una sinceridad abrumadora y te corta en la mejilla si te despistas.
September 15, 2022
“Tener ojos solo para ti es una forma sofisticada de decir que soy ciega”.
“qué amenaza (…) podría gritarles, por ejemplo: Escribiré sobre ti. Y: No escribiré sobre ti”.
“qué amenaza (…) podría gritarles, por ejemplo: Escribiré sobre ti. Y: No escribiré sobre ti”.
June 28, 2023
Ay, me ha gustado. Qué forma tan sencilla y tan sutil de denunciar el racismo y el machismo que nos rodea. Me ha llegado mucho.
April 5, 2023
motherlode users unite
February 22, 2023
No pudo haberme llegado en mejor momento. Mi novia me regaló este libro, y no he tardado mucho en leerlo porque era uno de los que tenía pendiente. Refleja muy bien la perspectiva de una persona con rasgos de Asia del este perteneciente a un país de blancos, y la hostilidad del entorno hacia ella. El racismo disfrazado de "curiosidad", "inocencia" o "bromas". Realmente hay muchas reflexiones dentro de este libro y tanto de lo que querría hablar... Pero es algo ya muy extenso.
Me ha gustado mucho el libro y, sin duda, voy a leerlo de nuevo muchas veces. Sinceramente, sí lo recomiendo. No puedo sentirme más agradecida con mi novia por habérmelo regalado.
Me ha gustado mucho el libro y, sin duda, voy a leerlo de nuevo muchas veces. Sinceramente, sí lo recomiendo. No puedo sentirme más agradecida con mi novia por habérmelo regalado.
March 9, 2023
La voz poética de sennah nos habla del racismo, del sexismo y homofobia con sutileza. Enseña sus cicatrices fugazmente entremezclando en sus poemas dolor y cultura pop. Merece la pena leerla.
August 16, 2025
Toronto poet and film producer Sennah Yee wrote a small book of poetry called How Do I Look— mostly prose poems. Very good.
August 13, 2022
L'edició de Paloma Ediciones és preciosa. Espero que publiquin més coses en aquesta línia.
Una autora cansada de sentir-se fora de lloc que explica de forma directa les seves vivències en una sèrie de microrelats molt originals.
Fàcil i ràpid de llegir, t'aporta reflexions interessants des de la perspectiva d'una dona canadenca d'origen xinès cansada de sentir-se "de fora" pel seu aspecte.
Ensenya que, fins i tot, de les males experiències en podem extreure art... Tot i que segueix sent una merda sentir-se malament.
Recomanable 100% si ets amant dels microrelats.
Una autora cansada de sentir-se fora de lloc que explica de forma directa les seves vivències en una sèrie de microrelats molt originals.
Fàcil i ràpid de llegir, t'aporta reflexions interessants des de la perspectiva d'una dona canadenca d'origen xinès cansada de sentir-se "de fora" pel seu aspecte.
Ensenya que, fins i tot, de les males experiències en podem extreure art... Tot i que segueix sent una merda sentir-se malament.
Recomanable 100% si ets amant dels microrelats.
January 6, 2023
The rewards of browsing in little independent bookshops in cities that are not your own is that you find stuff like this: powerful, fierce words from a poet you’ve never heard of before. I loved the way Yee plays with dual page spreads, contrasting poems against one another, and the way she blends film criticism and poetry (although I’m a sucker for both, so your mileage may vary).
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February 20, 2020A quick read if you're heartless. A couple lines took me out at the knees and I had to put the book down to catch my breath. Fucking ouch! Brilliant book of poetry that reflects on love, queerness, and racism through the lens of pop culture.
February 9, 2023
Literalmente poesía de una calidad tremenda, sobre temas increíbles.
Amo la forma en la que cuenta las cosas, todos los poemas son una joya, y yo no soy mucho de poesía, pero supongo que de ESTE tipo sí lo soy.
Habla desde la experiencia de ser mujer asiática viviendo en Canadá y me han parecido muy heavy las tremendas reflexiones que recoge en sus versos.
Me ha gustado mucho en serio, creo que lo ojearé y releeré a menudo.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Amo la forma en la que cuenta las cosas, todos los poemas son una joya, y yo no soy mucho de poesía, pero supongo que de ESTE tipo sí lo soy.
Habla desde la experiencia de ser mujer asiática viviendo en Canadá y me han parecido muy heavy las tremendas reflexiones que recoge en sus versos.
Me ha gustado mucho en serio, creo que lo ojearé y releeré a menudo.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
September 10, 2023
He sentido la urgencia con la que escribe Sennah Yee. Las verdades que se le pasan por la cabeza y como las apunta antes de que caigan al olvido. Creo que somos afortunados de entrar en su propio mundo, un mundo que muy frecuentemente se siente demasiado familiar (y ojalá no tuviera que ser así)
June 28, 2020
One of the best books of prose poetry I’ve ever read! Each poem is a tiny movie. I love this book.
August 21, 2022
que decir... que lista que bueno que sencillo todo lo que me gusta
April 5, 2023
I love everything about this.
December 8, 2024
"STILL, I SWALLOW"
I read this book in one setting before bed: meaning that I'd only intended to read a few passages and fall drowsy as I usually do for the kind of book you can dip in and out of: but there is an energy here, a lightness of touch, that propels you forth with each pithy vignette and kept me up until the end. I read it like a novel: as though there was only one speaker, but in this way don't we do a disservice to the author's imagination and her capacity for deception: it's billed as non-fiction, it's called poetry, but fiction is sprinkled in here and there: to read it as a single speaker is pure laziness on our part: cast the thought away before you enter! And what do you get once you are inside? First, there is the myth (classical) of Medusa, and then a dismantling of that myth (post-modern), that mirror imagery that we return to later on, in "Winged Tips," where the title comes from, a question that is never answered, for Yee's preoccupation is the maturation of one's gaze: who is looking at who, how does one look (zoning in on wine on lace, or the hair of your crush) and what does it mean to see in the modern world where cinema, video games and micro-aggressions interrupt this project of getting to know thy multitudinous self. Here is the tenderness of childhood, the hedonism of adolescence and the beginnings of adulthood, of stepping out into the world and being reminded that you are not white, that you will never belong no matter how hard you try to delude yourself into thinking so. With poems like "Mysterious" and "Therapy" and the final poem "Criteria For Crazy" we get repetition, variations on a theme that culminates into a rhapsodic music: I got lost in them and had to catch myself to tune back into them. It is always a pleasant, welcome experience to sit inside of the mind of a poet as the residue of the lived experience of their life accumulates to create a minor reckoning: without pretension but borne out of intellectual and erotic tension, out of a real person who thinks for themselves, outside of the mass, in their own key and register, from which we can only hope to be influenced by. When I flipped the last page I found myself looking for more, to keep going, not because there isn't enough to chew on here, but because I wanted to keep going: it's a book about figuring out how to look at the world that ends at the very point that she begins to see.
I read this book in one setting before bed: meaning that I'd only intended to read a few passages and fall drowsy as I usually do for the kind of book you can dip in and out of: but there is an energy here, a lightness of touch, that propels you forth with each pithy vignette and kept me up until the end. I read it like a novel: as though there was only one speaker, but in this way don't we do a disservice to the author's imagination and her capacity for deception: it's billed as non-fiction, it's called poetry, but fiction is sprinkled in here and there: to read it as a single speaker is pure laziness on our part: cast the thought away before you enter! And what do you get once you are inside? First, there is the myth (classical) of Medusa, and then a dismantling of that myth (post-modern), that mirror imagery that we return to later on, in "Winged Tips," where the title comes from, a question that is never answered, for Yee's preoccupation is the maturation of one's gaze: who is looking at who, how does one look (zoning in on wine on lace, or the hair of your crush) and what does it mean to see in the modern world where cinema, video games and micro-aggressions interrupt this project of getting to know thy multitudinous self. Here is the tenderness of childhood, the hedonism of adolescence and the beginnings of adulthood, of stepping out into the world and being reminded that you are not white, that you will never belong no matter how hard you try to delude yourself into thinking so. With poems like "Mysterious" and "Therapy" and the final poem "Criteria For Crazy" we get repetition, variations on a theme that culminates into a rhapsodic music: I got lost in them and had to catch myself to tune back into them. It is always a pleasant, welcome experience to sit inside of the mind of a poet as the residue of the lived experience of their life accumulates to create a minor reckoning: without pretension but borne out of intellectual and erotic tension, out of a real person who thinks for themselves, outside of the mass, in their own key and register, from which we can only hope to be influenced by. When I flipped the last page I found myself looking for more, to keep going, not because there isn't enough to chew on here, but because I wanted to keep going: it's a book about figuring out how to look at the world that ends at the very point that she begins to see.
December 21, 2019
This chapbook was tender, fun, and full of hidden depth beneath its wonderfully millennial Twitter sense of humour. I wanted to take a picture of each poem and put it on Instagram. I loved the clever way the speaker took up its environments, its cinematic influences, and its international and local settings. That the author is the same age as me... well, it makes so much sense, it feels like I'm reading the work of a Toronto-based doppelganger who decided to take up the film studies route after all and has a slightly different but still ultimately related relationship to racism and diaspora. The rectangular and one-line poems are deeply emblematic of that film influence and one-liner punch-up against street harassers.
Like Beni Xiao's Bad Egg this book goes into great detail about bodies with ripe and skillful precision, which I find refreshing. Looking forward to reading more from Sennah Yee!
Like Beni Xiao's Bad Egg this book goes into great detail about bodies with ripe and skillful precision, which I find refreshing. Looking forward to reading more from Sennah Yee!
April 14, 2018
This awesome little book is basically a bunch of short anecdotes. Many are about encounters with racism and sexism, often related to pop culture, either her own encounters or having stuff thrown back at her by others. Some are only a single sentence. There's lots of relationship stuff too. The feelings in this are really relatable. I really liked it.
December 29, 2024
A very powerful collection of poetry covering topics such as womanhood, queerness, and the author’s Asian identity.
My favorite piece is, “Words I Do Not Know in Chinese.” As a no sabo kid, the last line was a punch to the heart.
A large chunk of the pieces in the book were lost on me as I hadn’t seen the referenced movies.
My favorite piece is, “Words I Do Not Know in Chinese.” As a no sabo kid, the last line was a punch to the heart.
A large chunk of the pieces in the book were lost on me as I hadn’t seen the referenced movies.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 2, 2023
"las mujeres son madres o esposas. a las mujeres les gusta la moda o ir de acampada. las mujeres llevan vestidos o pantalones tejanos. las mujeres son rubias o morenas. las mujeres mueren o viven para ser castigadas"
August 9, 2023
hay aciertos variados, una mirada poética fresca sobre la deslocalización, el racismo y el choque cultural angloasiático. Hay poemas para el recuerdo como Lost in translation o GTA V y una edición cuidadísima.
November 18, 2023
No puedes hacer que las cosas que te pasan sean inocuas. Grandes o pequeñas. Pero puedes escribir poemas y demostrar, una vez más, que la cultura pop e internet son un ecosistema increíble para drenarse, para desahogarse y eso, entretenerse y proyectarse.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews