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Articles by Greg Bem
Bilingual poetry collection offers hope within the howl of the machine - International Examiner
As I stare, I can see a big wheel rolling on the water (from "Water Lily," page 4) Moon's poetry is concerned with flatness, a unique metaphorical current at once underwhelming and overwhelming. What is flat? What is shallow? What is at rest? What is slow? These are just some of the countless questions that bridge the reader into the poet's inquiry.
Xiaoqiong Zheng’s poetry finds beauty amid the phantasmagoria of industrial southern China
That hungry machine, every day eating iron, blueprints stars, dew, salty sweat, it picks its teeth and spits out profit, bank notes, nightclubs . . . it sees lopped-off fingers unpaid wages, shadowy occupational diseases, and the memories are bitter (from “Machine,” page 7) The writings of Xiaoquiong Zheng are emblematic of a 21st century industrial and post-industrial society.
'Phantom Limbs,' the first book of poetry by Korean writer Lee Min-ha, explores the hauntings within us all
Phantom Limbs, the first book of poetry by Korean writer Lee Min-ha, explores the hauntings within us all Your body’s wetland is revealed to be neither light nor dark. Why don’t you stick a fin into your heel and stretch your left eye? Ripples roll across the mirror. (from “Mirror Game”) To read Phantom Limbs, the first book of poetry by Korean writer Lee Min-ha, is to undergo transformation and begin a conversation between the self and the world.
Mai Der Vang’s latest collection continues the practice of documentary poets
We’ve never met in this existence, never scuffed our skin to the same sheet of velvet. A mirror reflects every unopened door, invitation to fall through. (from “Animal,” page 5) The saola is a critically endangered animal whose rare sightings have occurred around the Annamite Mountains in Laos and Vietnam. The first sighting was in 1992 and the last photograph of the saola was in 2013. It is considered the “unicorn” of Southeast Asia.
'36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem' offers a poetry of transience and transformation amid war and violence - International Examiner
The moon-made lake. The memory-made mood That makes whatever it takes To make a moon and lake and man who remembers To compose a unity of self From a fantasy of self. (from “30. Asymptotic,” page 53) In Nam Le’s first poetry collection, the poet explores aspects of identity and confronts challenges of representation by balancing tradition and trend with innovation and invention.
In 'Mirror Nation,' poet Don Mee Choi pieces together Korea’s violent history
Because of this beauty, this exquisite beauty of our sphere, our halo world. From “Berlin 30.11.2019,” pg. 78 Don Mee Choi’s latest release is another unforgettable movement into the realm of documentation, poetry, and memoir. It is a book where the author’s footsteps and gazes unfold experience into story. It is lucid, subtle, and epic, a cascade of ideas that bridge phantasmagoria and verisimilitude, photographically connecting image to definition to implication.
'Phantom Pain Wings' by experimental feminist poet Kim Hyesoon is thrilling
I fly then stop I fly then chirp Inside my made-up world, I can go very far Not a song not an echo but a faraway place where there’s only freedom I’m bird, bird flying in that place (from “10 Centimeters,” page 37) With every book in Kim Hyesoon’s canon, bars are raised, ambitions are explored, and readers are gifted with incredible and incredibly challenging reinventions of poetry.
Paul Tran’s debut poetry collection gives the reader a surreal and confounding sense of connection - International Examiner
We sat in silence. We sipped in silence. Her silence demanding mine. Some suffering we’d rather not know so we don’t suffer knowledge calling on us in the name of love to blame ourselves and to appropriate the pain because we think of pain and blame as objects requiring purpose and possession.
Emerging Korean poet Moon Bo Young’s confessional collection arrives at unsettling catharsis - International Examiner
“Someone staying up all night with open eyes looks at the eggplant-colored ceiling. A person lives above them, supine, asleep. This person stares with open eyes at the eggplant-colored person living above them.” (from “What the Hallway Prepared,” 81) Black Ocean’s Moon Country Poetry Series centers the English translations of mid-career and emerging Korean poets’ work.
79-part epic poem about everyday life within and beyond the pandemic
*Note: this book does not contain page numbers, so I reference the individual works (which are simply numbered, rather than attempting to figure out which page is which, which would be in error). “The soil of survival is blocked by fear. The rain of pleasure is blocked by guilt.The magma of willpower is blocked by shame. The sky of the heart is blocked by delusion. The iris of intuition is blocked by disconnection.
Poetry collection explores the body's relationship with the world with surrealism and chilling unease
The debut collection by Korean American poet Joey S. Kim is a brief, visceral experience venturing into questions of presence, the liminal, and human form. Body Facts (Diode Editions, 2021) is composed of 28 poems, each ranging one to two pages in length, which offer brief glimpses into the everyday experiences and memories of the poet. The forms capture the short-lived and the endured: momentary sprouts of verse are matched with vast, prosaic statements that propel across the page.
An Invitation by Captivation
An Invitation by Captivation: A review of Tilsa Otta’s And Suddenly I Was Just Dancing by Greg Bem Exhale And it dawns somewhere Everything breathes And it’s impossible to be dead (from “Final Reflection,” page 21) Otta, Tilsa. And Suddenly I Was Just Dancing, translated from the Spanish by Honora Spicer. Cardboard House Press, February 2023, 56 pages (bilingual), $23.00.
Through poetic collage, 'Yellow Rain' details the traumatic experiences of the Hmong people during the American War in Vietnam
That you have hungered for Your own clever existence Though never to have slept In the elderlight of past bones How does your heritage respond To the surge of patterns All thundering the same wound (from “Never to Have Had Your Song Bless,” pg. 116) The documentary poetics of Hmong American Mai Der Vang are robust and extensive in her new collection Yellow Rain (Graywolf Press, 2021), the follow-up to 2017’s Afterland.
Death in Summer by Maung Day
With an introduction by Greg Bem In this collection of visceral, dreamlike prose poems and chimeric ink drawings, Burmese poet and artist Maung Day creates a haunting portrait of how political violence and oppression in Myanmar has permeated the everyday lives of its citizens.
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