Asterism

Author: Ae Hee Lee

Publisher: Tupelo Press (2024)

At times personal, at others political, slipping back and forth between lyric and narrative and drawing on various languages and geographies, Asterism is a collection of grace and grit, the work of a mind at work—in, and on, a world that is simultaneously expanding and contracting. Both accessible and legitimately experimental, these poems invite and challenge the reader, moving between registers and modes with ease.

“What does it mean to seek a life beyond belonging? Traveling through rich landscapes of memory, Ae Hee Lee’s Asterism retraces the poet’s lineage from South Korea to Peru to the United States, restlessly seeking the self ‘at the edge of every edge.’ Words bloom and refract as they move across borders; uncertainties ring out in the gaps. Yet what is most powerful about this book is how it reaches again and again toward the reader, toward the possibilities that exist between ‘my air and your ear.’ A tender, finely-tuned collection, and a beautiful contribution to the canon of Korean diasporic literature.”

—Franny Choi