Winner of the 2022 Dorset Prize
selected by John Murillo
ASTERISM contemplates the wonders and challenges of transnational, polycentric living. Moving between South Korea, Peru, and the United States, the poems in the collection find luminous homes at the interstices of bridges, flight layovers, languages, desires, imperfect memories, and mutable mouths. They blur the line between self and other: words are translated into connotations, self-portraits become co-inhabited identities with family, friends, foods, and cultural histories. As ASTERISM interrogates capitalist enactments of fixed and exclusive belonging, each line seeks to unfurl towards a strangeness and beauty of its own making.
*Cover artwork by Seongmin Ahn
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“It is quite commonplace when describing a new volume of poetry to resort to stock, albeit wholly appropriate, descriptors. “Stunning” and “dazzling” come immediately to mind. So, too, “compelling.” I’m sure I’ve used such phrases myself, and would now when writing about Asterism, were this book not so fresh that it makes one self-conscious of, and encourages the reader to want to lean away from, anything resembling the familiar. The range in theme would be impressive enough on its own, but what sets this collection apart is how the author is able to pull off legitimate experimentation while remaining accessible. The poems both invite and challenge the reader. Here is a poet as intelligent as any other, but whose intelligence is never the point of the poem. Not to mention the language is downright gorgeous. Perhaps what is most striking about the collection is the apparent ease with which the author moves between registers and modes. At times personal, at others political; slipping back and forth between lyric and narrative; drawing on various languages and geographies, Asterism is a collection of both grace and grit, the work of a mind at work—in, and on, a world that is simultaneously expanding and contracting.” —John Murillo
“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 this 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
“I have been waiting quite a while for a poet to risk the elegance and gestural audacity of the Baroque upon issues of origin and identity. All too often, these issues vex and distort our poetry. But in Asterism, they amplify the language of Ae Hee Lee onto a ravishing spree of utterance and image. There is great breadth here, and heartening innovation.” —Donald Revell
Excerpts
“(Dis)ambiguation,” Poetry Daily
“Self-Portrait as Daily Sustenance,” and “Green Card :: Evidence of Adequate Means of Financial Support,” POETRY Magazine
“(Dis)ambiguation” and “Home Remedies,” Ecotone
Reviews & Interviews
Celebrating The Mystery of How Language Courses Through The Body: An Interview with Ae Hee Lee by Mandana Chaffa
The Rumblr: Everything Can Be a Center: Mini Interview with Ae Hee Lee by Gabriella Souza
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