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theyoungveronica's review
5.0
"Better to be ravaged straightway in youth / Than to live out another year’s quiet undoing."
"I don’t want to know, or understand, or be restored / To reason."
"My flesh forsakes itself. Strangers’ eyes / Drill into me till I bleed. I beg God: Make me a ghost."
"Besieged, I sink / Into a dark world."
"I don’t want to know, or understand, or be restored / To reason."
"My flesh forsakes itself. Strangers’ eyes / Drill into me till I bleed. I beg God: Make me a ghost."
"Besieged, I sink / Into a dark world."
lilymarg's review
4.0
“I envied Yi Lei’s ability to claim the fact of that love, and to embrace the joy and upheaval it led to without apologizing for it or turning against it as is sometimes the case when one looks back at the many detours of one’s own youth. ‘Love is innocent,’ she said. And with that simple phrase, I believe she explained parts of myself to me, which is, of course, what great poets do.” — Tracy K Smith
alisham's review
4.0
This was a lovely collection. I longed for more of Yi Lei's later work. As always poetry in translation is as much the poetry of the translator as the translated, and a poet is always the best translator of poetry. When the poems caught me breathless I was delighted, when they didn't I moved on.
sophiesticatedselections's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.75
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