Phyla of Joy
by Karen An-hwei LeeDear Karen, What do you do to #BeatTheBlues, to rise from the depths of darkness and keep going with all your might? What do I do? Offerings of praise, even the smallest acts of grace like watering the garden and pulling weeds – with a dose of gratitude for the flourishing lavender, rosemary, feathergrass, and fruit trees. Baking a big loaf of lemon poppy seed bread and sharing it with friends. Seeing the truth beyond ourselves and embracing it with humility. Focusing on every sound I hear, trying to be content in stillness: finches fussing in the scarlet trumpet honeysuckle, cicadas and fig beetles in flight, warring hummingbirds, a faraway motorboat. How do you keep your momentum despite any surrounding distractions? Reverse engineer your heart. Over a decade ago, I chose not to replace my television set after it burned out. I put a lovely glass lamp on the spot where it sat, where the television’s absence yielded a space for light and reflection. |
Phyla of Joy |
Some of our own inventions of convenience may cloud our capacity to navigate life in a fully integrated way, and the subsequent noise distracts us from what is essential.
Do you have a favorite poem from the most recent work you’ve written that may want to share with us for our feature titled “For the Love of Poetry”?
On the Etymology of Birds in a Season of Austerity appeared recently in The Nottingham Review edited by Spencer Chou.
You have over a decade of university-level teaching experience. What do you tell your students on how to keep focused on their dreams and never miss a beat?
Ponder your dreams on both sides of your brain by exploring your designs carefully through the lens of pragmatism – gently interview your dreams by asking them what I call “bread and butter” questions – while listening carefully to your passions and aspirations. How will you bless these dreams as their steward?
Be persistent in writing down your prayers in a journal. (Yes, it can be the same as your gratitude journal.) Take feasible steps you can take to equip yourself to turn the dream into reality.
Listen to those who’ve accomplished the goals of similar dreams. What wisdom can you glean from their stories?
Earn your way into realizing your dream: expect nothing for free, take nobody for granted, and express gratitude frequently. Pour into others the gifts, coaching, and affirmations your mentors poured into you.
Do you have a favorite poem from the most recent work you’ve written that may want to share with us for our feature titled “For the Love of Poetry”?
On the Etymology of Birds in a Season of Austerity appeared recently in The Nottingham Review edited by Spencer Chou.
You have over a decade of university-level teaching experience. What do you tell your students on how to keep focused on their dreams and never miss a beat?
Ponder your dreams on both sides of your brain by exploring your designs carefully through the lens of pragmatism – gently interview your dreams by asking them what I call “bread and butter” questions – while listening carefully to your passions and aspirations. How will you bless these dreams as their steward?
Be persistent in writing down your prayers in a journal. (Yes, it can be the same as your gratitude journal.) Take feasible steps you can take to equip yourself to turn the dream into reality.
Listen to those who’ve accomplished the goals of similar dreams. What wisdom can you glean from their stories?
Earn your way into realizing your dream: expect nothing for free, take nobody for granted, and express gratitude frequently. Pour into others the gifts, coaching, and affirmations your mentors poured into you.
* * *
Little Engines of Grace
Little engines of grace are unseen in air
rising on nebulae of gas and time
too far to reach unless you are a beam of light.
No mystery here:
After all, this is only the neighbor
whom you must love as yourself,
not physical distances of space but souls.
If there are little engines of grace
spawned from the original engine, God –
then engines, too, could be flogged without a trial.
Or beaten by rods.
If you are a little engine,
you are not alone. God is motor oil in you.
As God pours through: you flame. And a refrain –
If you are a little engine,
you are not alone. God pours motor oil in you.
As God pours through: you love.
Little engines of grace are humming praise.
If you are a little engine,
God pours motor oil in you.
As God pours through:
* * *
You’re also a voting member of the National Book Critics Circle. How do you see some of the essential traits of today’s literature and who are some of the writers you consider as the best representatives of our times?
Our non-profit, literary publishers are frontlisting phenomenal books by marginalized voices across genres and in diverse modes. These are pure acts of love.
We need to support our independent publishers by circulating and teaching writers who take risks by leaning into the cutting edge of sociocultural change. Our larger publishing houses follow suit to a degree with new imprints featuring innovative authors who write incredibly eloquent, zany books.
I shared a list of writers I’m currently reading or re-reading over at the Harriet Blog for the Poetry Foundation.
Being Asian American, what do you see as some of the most important achievements of today’s Asian American writers?
Asian American writers are more heterogeneously daring as poets and storytellers than ever before. When I had the pleasure of serving as a faculty member at Kundiman, I described our new and emerging Asian American voices are “hot lava” – molten igneous rock in flowing rivers of fire – shaping the landscape of contemporary American poetry, a figurative Pacific Ring of Fire and beyond.
In the context of newness, classic questions also surface, exploring who we are, where we are going, what our purpose is, and what is essentially meaningful.
Can you share with us an example of a rejection or failed work which you still regret?
Once I wrote a little group of poems which I thought rather uninteresting and tossed the pages into the round bin. Alas, how I regret those lost poems.
However, after a couple years, I discovered a partial stash of those “lost poems” in a box hiding inside my writing closet (a square bin, not the round bin) and was delighted to revive them. I’d saved a few of those little poems, after all.
Do you have a favorite project that you are currently working on?
A novel about a data cloud who survives a technocracy collapse… and who embarks on a vicarious pursuit of happiness. It’s coming out soon.
What’s your motto in life and work?
Of late, it’s Albert Einstein’s famous quotation on miracles: “You can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle.”
What is the most beautiful word you would like to use more?
A beautiful question: resilience or revolution.
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