Diary of Use

Author: J. Vera Lee

Publisher: Tinfish Press (2013)

"In Diary of Use, J. Vera Lee's poems entangle and untangle themselves with and from the world they abide in. They arrive and take up residence in a place between nature and culture, fate and chance, simplicity and complexity. To say Lee's poems are 'at home' in either term of such oppositions is to miss their point: these poems are adrift—a drift of elements, an elemental drift—and find their path as it is being cleared by the poems themselves. 'Later, drifting as softly as possible, / bumping against street / curbs rather than / banks // or guards, you / have been / waiting / extremely.' If you're willing to wait, these poems will meet you along their own path."—Paul Naylor