Treadwinds: Poems and Intermedia Works
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The long-awaited first collection of Lew's poems and intermedia pieces.Publishers WeeklyLew has been active as an editor (Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New North Asian American Poetry), critic and multimedia artist in the Asian-American literary community for years, and was an early champion of the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, whose Dictee is now a classic of postcolonial literature. This collection, culled from 20 years of writing, puts forth a unique mixture of traditional, even ancient, poetic styles that extends across cultures: one poem is called "Two Handfuls of Waka for Thelonius Sphere Monk," while another peels off politically charged lexemes in a "language" vein: "mudlight moontruck bloodhope bonegun." "Intermedia" work includes several pages from Lew's out-of-print "critical collage" on Cha's work, Excerpts from: DIKTE for DICTEE; weird phonetic translations of poems in Japanese script; and the title poem, which is accompanied by several collages by filmmaker and animator Lewis Klahr. Further leaps across continents, time periods and narrative angles include a spooky ekphrastic meditation on the paintings of Francis Bacon ("The walls of the room have vanished. There is just the one glandular light Swinging, and the mattress With its skin flayed off"), lighthearted narrative montages ("An Apartment in the City"), prose poems and quasi magical-realist lyrics such as "Green": "At nightfall a huge crow Yanked my tongue out. From the inflammation grew this One transparent snake-nerve, Filament rippling with silver tox." This eclecticism is all held together by Lew's measured pace, lively sense of enjambment, condensed imagery and impatience with the facile wordplay that sinks other poetry covering similar themes. It fills in an important corner not only of Lew's multifaceted career but the larger portrait of Korean and Asian-American literature of the past two decades. (June) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
18 Generations at [actual symbol not reproducible]7Leaving [actual symbol not reproducible]: 19538Mound I: Silent for 25 Years [actual symbol not reproducible] Advises Me9Down from the Monastery15[character for thing [actual symbol not reproducible]]17[actual symbol not reproducible] Spora18[actual symbol not reproducible] Complaint231958.4.729Brine33Driving Back from the Rosy-Fingered Berkshires35Instead of Calling Oakland37Just-No Tale38The Stars and Stripes40In the Realm42[actual symbol not reproducible]44An Apartment in the City46Two Handfuls of [actual symbol not reproducible] for Thelonious Sphere Monk (d. Feb. 1982)51Passing under the Mountain53Fan55The Death of [actual symbol not reproducible] near Osaka, 169457Catching the Bus on a Winter Evening58Two Poems for Gregory Crane60The Francis Bacon Exhibition at the Metropolitan61198263Green70[actual symbol not reproducible]74Rehab81Fractured unspeakens83From Excepts from: [actual symbol not reproducible] for DICTEE (1982)86Seoul: Winter, 198693On the Road to the Blue House with CBS News in Seoul94In an Alley96Treadwinds (with collages by Lewis Klahr)99Manoa Run108Notes113Acknowledgments115
