Book Review
In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected Poems
by Lee Herrick
reviewed by Lisa Marie Rollins
Sometimes all we have is the blues. The blues means
Finding a song in the abandonment, one
you can sing in the middle of the night when
you remember that your Korean name, Kwang Soo
Lee, means bright light, something that can illuminate
or shine, like tears, little drops of liquefied God . . .
(from “Salvation” from This Many Miles From Desire, 2007)
Lee Herrick was born in Daejeon, Korea, adopted as an infant and grew up in California. He is currently the 10th California Poet Laureate, and the first Asian American to serve in the role. In his latest collection, you’ll find new work and poems from his much- loved books, Gardening the Secrets of the Dead, Scar and Flower and my continued favorite, This Many Miles from Desire.
As I moved through the poems, I was reminded of the concept of naming. For global majority people and for adoptees, what we are named by our caretakers or what we are named by society has complex implications when it comes to our lived and personal identities. Further, our ability to name our reality is a critical step in our coming in to consciousness around our whole selves. Herrick has the ability to not only name out loud his many longings and wonderings about his life, but to name the ache of isolation, the pain of disconnection, or the desire to feel worthy of home, family or love. He does it in a way that can make you nod vigorously or weep in recognition, or gasp at the magic balm the act of naming in his language unleashes. Not only this, but his use of his own name, his multiple names, his possible names, the names he gives himself or the names he has been called, names that echo an understanding of the many lives adoptees could have lived, our ghost kingdoms, our shadow lives.
This is how I imagine
your body: brown and surfacing, a changing shape
of grace and light to mirror
the foreboding chant of my own death
or the true loss of a child in Korean
who goes West to become a child in America
full of spectral images distracting him from
all the Korean trees, the clashing bodies
all the animals and angels calling out his name.
(from “Spectral Questions of the Body” from Gardening Secrets of the Dead, 2012)
Another layer that makes this book special is Herricks deeper experimentation with what could be considered “poetic flash fiction.” What we experience in this collection is something akin to sitting at the table with a strong cup of tea and Herrick himself sharing his stories, flashes of memory, and longer detailed waves of emotion.
The collection includes new and old poems that reflect the diversity and global world perspectives of the United States and those of California, poems that question American identity, and poems that exalt the joy of street food.
All praise for the pozole glistening in midday light
By the grace of the woman near the comal. In southern
California, Raul Martinez unveiled a mobile
downtown goldmine of al pastor by a bar in
East LA for the drunk, the artists, the necessary
future waiting in line.
Praise be to the ice cream truck,
Glory of the van’s slow roll, so praise the van,
hut, cart, booth, tent, stall, stand, bike or truck.
(from “Abecedarian Long Song for Street Food” from New Poems)
The poems that reflect Herrick’s life in central California, his experience as a Korean-American, as a father, and as an adoptee all remind us why his selection as our California Poet Laureate is so well deserved. Many adoptees long for complex representation in the arts, on television and in film, throughout our cultural landscape. Herrick’s appointment is significant in that we are able to walk with him in celebrating his career as a poet, but also his deep commitment to saying things that many of us could have never found a way to say out loud.
In Praise of Late Wonder is very much “the best of,” in the way that an old album of your favorite songs echo moments of recognition in your life. I recommend In Praise of Late Wonder to any diasporic adoptee or readers who are already fans of Herrick’s work. Additionally, I encourage readers curious about the breadth and depth of the adoptee emotional landscape, as well as those who have any disconnection or disruption with genetic family, to buy a copy. Herrick’s poems are always a quiet salve, offering healing and solace that will stay with you long after you read them.
Lisa Marie Rollins is a writer, director and new play developer. She is a transracial adoptee, a longtime adoptee advocate, and an Assistant Professor at UC Santa Cruz in the Dept of Performance, Play and Design.