Gratitudes: Christian Wiman and Don Share will discuss my work on an upcoming media cast for the Poetry Foundation in Chicago. Their project features my poems in an upcoming issue of Poetry Magazine, hence a recent visit to the radio station at the University of California, Irvine. Many thanks to Margaret, who arranged everything with the sound engineer. I’ll visit again next week.
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On the UCI campus, I was happy to see Li Po’s head restored! He’s in a garden off Aldrich Park, posed with three other Chinese poets & philosophers. Last time I visited UCI, the venerable head of our moon-in-the-lake poet was missing from his marble torso. Glad to see his new noggin intact!
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Written in Chinese, his “Li” is the same as my “Lee.” Though I, too, may lose my head while gazing at beautiful Aldrich Park in the center of the Irvine campus, I’m not sure whether we’re actually related, literally.
Prayers: For people, everywhere, who write poetry… inspiration through words, languages, and healing.
KAREN AN-HWEI LEE 