Behind My Eyes

Starred review from November 19, 2007
In this fourth collection by the popular Lee (Book of My Nights
), timely immigration issues drive such poems as “Self-Help for Fellow Refugees,” but Lee swiftly folds them into broader inquiries about inheritance, memory and loss: “you'll remember your life,” he advises, “as a book of candles,/ each page read by the light of its own burning.” Lee's late father appears in the light of his evangelical Christian beliefs, his mother and sister as cherished links to childhood. Biblical allusions enliven an otherwise spare verbal world, while aphorisms and spiritual advice strike a note reminiscent of Rumi: “Every wise child is sad.... Every wind-strewn flower is God tearing God.” Rarely subtle, Lee can nevertheless be concise: every line bears the weight of long meditation, sometimes even of wisdom. “Virtues of the Boring Husband,” the longest piece, is one of Lee's best: a discourse on the nature of love—ponderous but shot through with golden truths—that comes from the mouth of the sheepish partner who admits, “Whenever I talk, my wife falls asleep./ So now, when she can't sleep, I talk.” Lee's ringing clarity and his compelling life story have brought him uncommonly loyal readers: this volume should swell their ranks. A CD of Lee reading many of the poems is included.

December 18, 2017
In his sixth collection, Lee (Behind My Eyes) ponders what separates a poem’s words from the word of God or birdsong or a lover’s familiar voice. Lee’s father, a Presbyterian minister, influences the poet’s work and view of God: “Two fathers in one, I was their son,/ we three alive together/ in one space two at a time.” The lines can mystify as they illuminate, occasionally offering a glimpse into Lee’s childhood as the son of Chinese exiles. In a more personal poem, Lee likens his childhood to an open book: “the left-hand page begins: They hated us without a cause./ And the right-hand page ends:/ The fire had not harmed our bodies,/ nor was a hair of our heads singed.” In the long title poem that opens the collection, the speaker undresses his partner—though the moment is flirtatious and erotic, he doesn’t bother to confirm consent—as she entreats him to listen to her curious, urgent disclosures. The woman warns that “hunger vacant of love is a confusion.” Perhaps she feels a helplessness similar to that Lee feels when he writes of God’s mercurial manipulations: “Sometimes it feels like love./ And makes me tremble./ Sometimes it hurts like death./ And makes me shake.” This is a fine collection, though the title poem may disturb readers.