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Imagine Us, The Swarm
WINNER of the 2022 Four Quartets Prize!
2022 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS FINALIST!
Winner of the Nightboat Books Poetry Prize, Imagine Us, The Swarm offers seven powerful texts that form a constellation of voices, forms, and approaches to confront loneliness, silence, and death. Following the death of the poet’s father, Imagine Us, The Swarm contemplates vengeance, eschews forgiveness, and cultivates a desire for healing beyond the reaches of this present life. In this collection of essays in verse, Leung reconciles a familial history of violence and generational trauma across intersections of Asian American, queer, and gendered experiences. Moving between the past and the present, Leung imbues memories with something new to alter time and design a different future.
2022 LAMBDA LITERARY AWARDS FINALIST!
Winner of the Nightboat Books Poetry Prize, Imagine Us, The Swarm offers seven powerful texts that form a constellation of voices, forms, and approaches to confront loneliness, silence, and death. Following the death of the poet’s father, Imagine Us, The Swarm contemplates vengeance, eschews forgiveness, and cultivates a desire for healing beyond the reaches of this present life. In this collection of essays in verse, Leung reconciles a familial history of violence and generational trauma across intersections of Asian American, queer, and gendered experiences. Moving between the past and the present, Leung imbues memories with something new to alter time and design a different future.
120 pages, Paperback
First published May 25, 2021
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292 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 15 reviews
August 2, 2021
Poetry like this makes me feel like other worlds are possible. It is a rare kind of poetry collection, wrt its formal hybridity yes, but also in its treatment of grief, or rather, how these poems travel so far into grief they find a new ecology, a new imagination of life. I'm going to be returning to this collection a lot, I suspect (especially the final sequence of poems).
November 26, 2021
Through a hybrid form of writing, somewhere in between poetry and experimental essay writing, Leung explores the multiple facets that make up her personal identity, her relationship with family, and the reality of living as an Asian American in a racist society. What was most painful, yet also holding the deepest resonance, were the ideas of generational inheritance that were explored—understanding the reality of an interconnected existence where you are simultaneously a part of yet separate from those who came before you and those who will come after. Sometimes that means inheriting generational trauma and pain as well.
What I like about reading this book is that it demands to be read again and again. Every single time I read I discover something new. There are so many carefully constructed layers of meaning for one to discover with each reading. It is not a collection that can be read just once. Moreover, the experimental formatting of the text itself lends so much meaning to what is written. Leung plays around so much with structure and form in every single one of her essays, exploring something new in each one.
For example, in “Plural Circuits of Tell” an extensive footnote section is added to the essay that explores ideas untouched in the words written above. In “I Marvel at the Noise a More Perfect Vengeance Makes” Leung often uses the double colon. According to Wikipedia, the use of :: is indicative of an “analogy symbolism operator” but also a “notation for equality of ratios.” It makes one pay extra careful attention to the ideas that are linked together through this double colon, such as when Leung writes “femme :: a sickle :: copper flesh inside a thorn.”
Leung sets the stage for how readers should approach this book with the first essay, “This is to Live Several Lives.” She begins with bees, singular entities, and considers “what it means to be at once [a colony] and [alone].” In the evitable way that readers infuse their own experiences and beliefs to color what they find to be the “meaning” of the book, I colored this poetic essay with my own struggle in existing both inside a hive yet being my own person. Especially in Western society, where Asians are not differentiated, often mistaken for one or another, only alike in that we are perpetually a ‘foreign other,’ I think about this concept, too. The fact that my identity can never be separated from these two extremes, the fact that I exist somewhere in the middle. I often reflect on what it means to live through this muddled existence.
“The Plural Circuits of Tell” felt especially relevant in the aftermath of the pandemic, when anti-Asian rhetoric and hate escalated into unimaginable levels during the peak of the pandemic. However, the pandemic did not cause the hate, it merely revealed the xenophobic hatred that has always existed as an undercurrent through American society. Leung tells a short story about a family visit to Hong Kong, where her mother was ultimately refused to visit her father’s old house due to the fear Leung’s uncle instills in her. She writes of the way of “the potency of imagination and the ways that stories spiral” and “contagious and rabid fear,” which parallels her discussion in the footnotes on the repercussions of the pandemic on the way Asian Americans were treated in this country—the way that “the association between survival of oneself and hatred for an entire people became unnecessarily bound.”
In Leung’s third essay, “A Careful List of All My Failures,” what struck me most was when she wrote, “The way my therapist traced it: the trauma wheel [in perpetuity] moves / and comes upon a wall smacking against its bright white surface / often on an unsuspecting day in succession / until it begins to feel like [a drowning].” A singlemicroaggression on its own may not be considered particularly harmful, but the trauma is created in the way that such “micro” moments build up into a sum greater than its parts until the recipient feels like they are drowning.
The following are just brief thoughts I had when recollecting on each individual essay. In “Life of a Drowning,” there was a description of grief that really stuck out to me. “I was describing to my mother the sensation of moving through the days like a runner trying to finish / a marathon in a pool of molasses. I saw the the world was on fire, but I was only ready for the most / immediate disaster, which was the realization that I could not swim and was sinking with painful / slowness.” One of my closest friends recently lost her brother to a freak accident. He was only nineteen. She said the hardest part of going through life without him was having to live with the fact that he is dead every single day. I actually sent her the words quoted above, and she said this is exactly how she feels every single day.
“Dear Intimacy of [Theory,” was actually the most confusing essay for me to read. It was the most poetic by far, and it seemed like it was just a retelling of a fever dream. But the intelligibility felt purposeful, like Leung was conveying to me that there was a part of herself that she wanted to express, but also a part of herself that belonged entirely to herself. This isn’t for you, this is for me. In “I Marvel at the Noises a More Perfect Vengeance Makes,” she reflects on the story of Geum-ja from the film Lady Vengeance. This is the third film within the Vengeance Trilogy by director Park Chan Wook (who directed Oldboy). IMDB summarizes the film as the following: “After being wrongfully imprisoned for thirteen years and having her child taken away from her, a woman seeks revenge through increasingly brutal means.” I reread the following lines written by Leung again and again, “Does my fury also receive its right to dream / The systems in which I place my whole life shudder against my waking.”
Leung’s final essay is where the title of the collection comes into play. “When I Imagine All the Possibilities of the Swarm,” ends with a vision of hope, a dream of a society free of racialized relationships. Overall, through exploring personal stories of grief, of past romantic relationships, Leung also comments on the reality of living a second-class existence. Consider the model minority myth, which falsely promises that simply by working hard in this country—“minorities :: success of middle class whites” is possible. Truthfully, it isn’t. Leung acts on this truth by rejecting assimilation. Rather, she explores the potential for the way the Asiann American identity can evolve. In an interview with NPR, Leung said, “In order to think about things like resistance or collective liberation, I think it does require us to think in terms of the swarm. So what can we do together better than we can when we’re apart?” Leung taught me that there is strength in the fact that Asians are seen as a collective identity. It is not something to be ashamed of, but a sense of strength, of power. There is so much that can be done by accepting instead of shying away from—to draw on the power of the swarm.
What I like about reading this book is that it demands to be read again and again. Every single time I read I discover something new. There are so many carefully constructed layers of meaning for one to discover with each reading. It is not a collection that can be read just once. Moreover, the experimental formatting of the text itself lends so much meaning to what is written. Leung plays around so much with structure and form in every single one of her essays, exploring something new in each one.
For example, in “Plural Circuits of Tell” an extensive footnote section is added to the essay that explores ideas untouched in the words written above. In “I Marvel at the Noise a More Perfect Vengeance Makes” Leung often uses the double colon. According to Wikipedia, the use of :: is indicative of an “analogy symbolism operator” but also a “notation for equality of ratios.” It makes one pay extra careful attention to the ideas that are linked together through this double colon, such as when Leung writes “femme :: a sickle :: copper flesh inside a thorn.”
Leung sets the stage for how readers should approach this book with the first essay, “This is to Live Several Lives.” She begins with bees, singular entities, and considers “what it means to be at once [a colony] and [alone].” In the evitable way that readers infuse their own experiences and beliefs to color what they find to be the “meaning” of the book, I colored this poetic essay with my own struggle in existing both inside a hive yet being my own person. Especially in Western society, where Asians are not differentiated, often mistaken for one or another, only alike in that we are perpetually a ‘foreign other,’ I think about this concept, too. The fact that my identity can never be separated from these two extremes, the fact that I exist somewhere in the middle. I often reflect on what it means to live through this muddled existence.
“The Plural Circuits of Tell” felt especially relevant in the aftermath of the pandemic, when anti-Asian rhetoric and hate escalated into unimaginable levels during the peak of the pandemic. However, the pandemic did not cause the hate, it merely revealed the xenophobic hatred that has always existed as an undercurrent through American society. Leung tells a short story about a family visit to Hong Kong, where her mother was ultimately refused to visit her father’s old house due to the fear Leung’s uncle instills in her. She writes of the way of “the potency of imagination and the ways that stories spiral” and “contagious and rabid fear,” which parallels her discussion in the footnotes on the repercussions of the pandemic on the way Asian Americans were treated in this country—the way that “the association between survival of oneself and hatred for an entire people became unnecessarily bound.”
In Leung’s third essay, “A Careful List of All My Failures,” what struck me most was when she wrote, “The way my therapist traced it: the trauma wheel [in perpetuity] moves / and comes upon a wall smacking against its bright white surface / often on an unsuspecting day in succession / until it begins to feel like [a drowning].” A singlemicroaggression on its own may not be considered particularly harmful, but the trauma is created in the way that such “micro” moments build up into a sum greater than its parts until the recipient feels like they are drowning.
The following are just brief thoughts I had when recollecting on each individual essay. In “Life of a Drowning,” there was a description of grief that really stuck out to me. “I was describing to my mother the sensation of moving through the days like a runner trying to finish / a marathon in a pool of molasses. I saw the the world was on fire, but I was only ready for the most / immediate disaster, which was the realization that I could not swim and was sinking with painful / slowness.” One of my closest friends recently lost her brother to a freak accident. He was only nineteen. She said the hardest part of going through life without him was having to live with the fact that he is dead every single day. I actually sent her the words quoted above, and she said this is exactly how she feels every single day.
“Dear Intimacy of [Theory,” was actually the most confusing essay for me to read. It was the most poetic by far, and it seemed like it was just a retelling of a fever dream. But the intelligibility felt purposeful, like Leung was conveying to me that there was a part of herself that she wanted to express, but also a part of herself that belonged entirely to herself. This isn’t for you, this is for me. In “I Marvel at the Noises a More Perfect Vengeance Makes,” she reflects on the story of Geum-ja from the film Lady Vengeance. This is the third film within the Vengeance Trilogy by director Park Chan Wook (who directed Oldboy). IMDB summarizes the film as the following: “After being wrongfully imprisoned for thirteen years and having her child taken away from her, a woman seeks revenge through increasingly brutal means.” I reread the following lines written by Leung again and again, “Does my fury also receive its right to dream / The systems in which I place my whole life shudder against my waking.”
Leung’s final essay is where the title of the collection comes into play. “When I Imagine All the Possibilities of the Swarm,” ends with a vision of hope, a dream of a society free of racialized relationships. Overall, through exploring personal stories of grief, of past romantic relationships, Leung also comments on the reality of living a second-class existence. Consider the model minority myth, which falsely promises that simply by working hard in this country—“minorities :: success of middle class whites” is possible. Truthfully, it isn’t. Leung acts on this truth by rejecting assimilation. Rather, she explores the potential for the way the Asiann American identity can evolve. In an interview with NPR, Leung said, “In order to think about things like resistance or collective liberation, I think it does require us to think in terms of the swarm. So what can we do together better than we can when we’re apart?” Leung taught me that there is strength in the fact that Asians are seen as a collective identity. It is not something to be ashamed of, but a sense of strength, of power. There is so much that can be done by accepting instead of shying away from—to draw on the power of the swarm.
May 30, 2021
I don’t often read an entire collection in one sitting, but I couldn’t this book down. Textured, affecting, brilliant, and beautiful. I’ve had a hard time reading poetry for the past year. I felt this book help me return.
April 19, 2024
Had high hopes for this one, but mostly ended up not understanding anything. I get that the style is deliberately cryptic, but most of the passages rang hollow to me, especially towards the later parts of the book. As in, I did not understand what the author was getting at enough to evoke any deep emotions like I thought the text would. Not sure if the exotic layout added anything, although its one of the things that excited me about the book in the first place. Maybe it's just not for me.
December 28, 2022
absolute banger and also I have no words for it
it deserves like so many many rereads. it's beautifully written, and has a deep element of theory behind it (with a section even titled as such). the usage of footnotes is such a fantastic formal element to the story, and the content itself (description of familial loss) is so so painful
it deserves like so many many rereads. it's beautifully written, and has a deep element of theory behind it (with a section even titled as such). the usage of footnotes is such a fantastic formal element to the story, and the content itself (description of familial loss) is so so painful
June 28, 2022
utterly, devastatingly gorgeous & haunting with its memories of love & loss & mourning & migration. Muriel Leung is beyond brilliant. I may have more to say but that will be for later after I finish wiping my tears on the train.
September 15, 2024
the first 42 pages or so had me so gagged i was taking pictures of basically every page
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December 4, 2021I will not this rate this book because I don't know how. I found the formatting of the text to be intriguing. I particularly enjoyed the framing of the colony vs. individual vs. swarm to be compelling. However I found myself feeling more and more lost as I continued through the collection. I wish that the poems had a stronger lyrical impact. I couldn't keep my focus the deeper I went into the collection.
March 28, 2022
To echo a review: "Its rigors are complex and yet a reader feels nothing so much as invited in, and the rewards are plentiful and profound." There is a pleasure in reading the voice of these poems ("invited in"), and challenge in the form and in the intellect (which also provides its own pleasure). And all of it deep, deep, deep, and worth plunging back in to.
April 23, 2025
4 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Leung gives us grief and loss in a way that breaks you over and over. I felt flattened and yet drawn to each retelling. It’s hard not to jerk at her honesty on Asian imagery twined with sickness. Leung presents it in morsels to digest and choke on. The poems move to balance between poetry and art. Excellent.
February 17, 2021
"The story of labor is that it goes on.
The hive hums its vacant sound.
In the comb, the honey is slow and its obedience bruises me."
The hive hums its vacant sound.
In the comb, the honey is slow and its obedience bruises me."
April 25, 2021
Phenomenal.
August 13, 2022
This collection is lovely in its specificity of experience, though I’ll admit my favorite part was how Leung plays with form and structure, using the page much more expressively than most poetry.
October 17, 2021
With quietly intense images, Leung examines her experiences as a child of immigrants, loss of a parent, desire, revenge. This list already feels reductionist, considering the dimensions of the poems. Her thoughtfully complex incorporation of theory as a means to explore the self only serves to build the pressure of her powerful investigations you read. I found this book to be endlessly quotable.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 15 reviews