A review by thejeffreyhv
Palette: Love Poems and Painted Words by Poetry › GeneralPoetry / Anthologies (multiple authors)Poetry / General

5.0

This is a truly stunning collection whose words left me breathless and broken time and time again. Yes, these poems are romantic by nature as the title suggests, but about something deeper than what you might be tricked to believe at first sight. In these pages are words full of deep longing, images of profound celebration, and verses bleeding with the most intimate cuts of nostalgia. This book is a reflection of self in Wang's classic style of taking something crude and raw, like an unsettling emotion or truth or observation, and whittling it down to a single image that conjures something so wistful and, yes, romantic in the reader.

Take, for example, the devastation so beautifully refined in this poem below, and then go find yourself a copy of the book:

"They're All Yours"

You sought I love yous
as if they were home
for hummingbirds
on their way to summer,  

and I gave them to you
because I had more
popping sores
under my wings.

I gave them all to you
because they were heavy,
and breeding and drunk,
dragging down my silken wings.