苦痛 痛苦苦難 艱苦苦澀 悲苦苦悶 愁苦苦惱 困苦苦頭 受苦苦笑 吃苦苦命 辛苦 A toiling an astringent lownessA labored misery. My love used toBloom overnight, the streets wideEnough for me to walk down. LifeA bloody toe or two. Easy. But I’ve beenMaking my mother’s bitterMelon: halved, hollowed out,Sautéed with garlic, salt, the eyes ofFermented black beans openingTo me from the pan. It’s notSugar I crave, but an ache thatStill makes the tongue water.A sadness held in the mouth. Is thisSavor my ceaseless condition? If so, I’mSick with it. Pull out my molars.Make of me a simpler O.
Bitterness Is the Chinese Root of Emotional Hurt
Feature Date
- March 29, 2023
Series
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
Copyright © 2023 by Emily Lee Luan.
Reprinted with permission of Nightboat Books.
Emily Lee Luan is the author of 回 / Return (April 2023), a winner of the Nightboat Poetry Prize, and I Watch the Boughs, selected by Gabrielle Calvocoressi for a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. A former Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry 2021, Best New Poets 2019, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from Rutgers University–Newark.
"In the style of palindromic poems built by Chinese characters, much of 回 / Return is dazzlingly multidirectional, challenging the eye to travel across areas of text in 'reversible poems' that can be read down the page, first to last line, as well as up, last to first, each reading offering new meanings."
— Cindy Juyoung Okay, Harriet Books
"In 回 / Return, Emily Lee Luan’s stunning reflections on sorrow haunt the sensorium. This sorrow—or 'an anger rooted in sadness'—is untranslatable, rooted in the violence of colonization, displacement, and deracination. And yet Luan’s poems, which alloy Chinese and English into feats of formal ingenuity and beauty, translate the unspeakable. Read it once, then read it again slowly to perceive the spectrum of emotions Luan unseams with dexterity. 回 / Return heralds a potent new voice in poetry."
— Cathy Park Hong
"Luan’s voice is almost shocking in its intimacy—reading this book is like suddenly being able to see emotions at the cellular level, across seas, through generations, between languages. Luan’s poetry pierces the surface of consciousness and swims powerfully into her own and our depths. Gorgeous, wondrous, genius."
— Brenda Shaughnessy
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
