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About Asterism: Poems
"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
"Ae Hee Lee's Asterism is a sweeping tour de force of a collection. In this stunning debut, mouths eat, name, translate, dream, kiss. If we are what we eat, then, in these pages, the poet is everything. The body is a chestnut, the country a walnut, and homesickness a woman licking a spoon. Moreover, the poet's mouth is a conduit to 'an inward- / stretching universe of lungs / and dark matter.' And Lee's breath, which moves visibly over these poems, carries us into constellations of possibilities and light."-Wendy Chen
"I believe the poetics of heritage and belonging in Asterism are transformative. But how does Ae Hee Lee do it? There is a sensuality that comes from kinship, and goes beyond it: 'my mother teaches me that in Korean to forget is also expressed as to have peeled.' Which is to say, there is a knowledge in this book that is both hidden, and in plain sight. Transformative, indeed. A marvelous work, filled with terrific imagery and-perhaps more importantly- mystery, Asterism is a brilliant debut."
-Ilya Kaminsky
About OCTOBERS
Winner of the 2022 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry
Octobers traces the four great tumults of the author's life, all of which originated in that jagged month of different years: The US invasion and occupation of her native Afghanistan, the death of her father, the sudden end of a love, and the birth of her daughter. The poems chart heartbreak along a helix, progressively and recursively, where "echoes are inevitable." Ultimately, the collection is concerned with language--as witness and buoy in the white waters of loss, as a tool for violences small and state-crafted, as an asymptote both approaching ideas of "home" and estranged from it, and, beyond it all and still, as a source of wild wonder.
Born in South Korea and raised in Peru, Ae Hee Lee is the author of ASTERISM, selected by John Murillo for the 2022 Dorset Prize, and the poetry chapbooks Bedtime || Riverbed, Dear bear, and Connotary , the last of which was selected as the winner for the 2021 Frost Place Chapbook Competition. Ae Hee is a Just Buffalo Literary Center Fellow, Adroit Journal Gregory Djanikian Scholar, recipient of the James Olney Award by The Southern Review, and Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship Finalist. She has also received scholarships and honors from the Academy of American Poets, AWP, Bread Loaf, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, among others.
Sahar Muradi is author of the collection OCTOBERS, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye for the 2022 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and a finalist for the National Poetry Series. She is author of the chapbooks [ G A T E S ], Ask Hafiz (winner of the 2021 Patrons’ Prize for Emerging Artists from Thornwillow Press), and A Garden Beyond My Hand. Sahar lives in New York City, where she directs the arts education programs at City Lore and dearly believes in the bottom of the rice pot. saharmuradi.com