Early Review: How to Write a Suicide Note
Continuing the series that I began but abandoned a while back, I return to my LibraryThing responsibilities and offer a review of a book that I received for free through their wonderful Early Reviewers program. (Although this one, I'm afraid, has already been published. Damn you, semester work.)
I submit for your approval my review of How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman's life, a book of poetry by Sherry Quan Lee, first published in June 2008. For the benefit of those who don't typically look at my LibraryThing profile, I've reprinted the review I've written below, so that it might get a bit more exposure for those who might be interested in this collection.
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I've spent a substantial amount of time ruminating on Sherry Quan Lee's volume of intensely personal poetry, for lack of the right way to express my feelings about it. It's hard to make sense of a book that is so clearly an expression of genuineness -- it's almost impossible to judge it objectively. This ambivalence permeates much of the collection itself: it falls somewhere between a great achievement and something that just misses the mark.
Despite the attention-grabbing title, How to Write a Suicide Note is far from being strictly about suicide. The collection is divided into a number of sections that are best described as larger "themes," ideas that permeate the section. What Quan Lee does surprisingly well is turn the many reflections in each section into a narrative of sorts, baring her emotions about particular conflicts and then showing, often in more abstract ways, how she comes to grips with those feelings. It gives the collection a very nice sense of unity as a whole.
Where the work starts to feel a little less cogent is in the development of the individual sections. For the most part, we are allowed to see that Quan Lee is struggling with her mixed heritage, her time growing up, and her troubled past relationships. Her treatment of these topics through the poetry is involving but also a little too safe: she often conceals more than she reveals. For these reasons, much of her verse tends to get a little bit repetitive and clichéd. Where more detail could have allowed these moments to stand out from other, similar works, they instead bleed together with both contemporary poetic traditions as well as the other poems in the section. In short, there are few individual poems that stick out as being truly memorable.
Yet she is also unabashed at pointing out that the purpose of the collection is to simply get her feelings out there, and she is to be respected and admired for doing so. Regardless of whether the particular turn of phrase becomes memorable or not, the essence of the poems is intense, and the sparse, simplistic language that she uses is perfectly suited to the situation. Quan Lee, I gather, doesn't hope to change the world or open up larger avenues for multiracial peoples, but we get a strong sense of the struggle she personally must deal with. If nothing else, the collection comes off feeling (sometimes uncomfortably) like a published diary -- an individual venting and, in so doing, coping with her life.
That writing is a coping strategy is perhaps the collection's greatest strength. Littered throughout the sections, and particularly through the first section, we get wonderful imagery about the act of writing and its transformative qualities -- and it is here that Quan Lee shines. If the collection itself is an introspective look at personal demons, the treatment of the personal, individual act of writing lends an additional air of authenticity to the proceedings. It also gives the collection the sense of urgency that would otherwise be missing: we feel as if the poet needs to get the words out in order to stay alive and, for better or worse, what we are reading is the result of that intense need.
As I have already mentioned, however, with that sense of urgency comes a feeling that the collection is a bit too touch-and-go. It's hard for me to judge because I have very little experience with reading contemporary poetry, but I feel as if the collection, though already spare, could have used a little more pruning in order to truly have a stronger impact. And in the end, How to Write a Suicide Note feels like it's caught between what it is and what it wants to be, and that makes it mediocre at best. As an artifact, it is moving; as a work of literature, it is wanting.
I submit for your approval my review of How to Write a Suicide Note: serial essays that saved a woman's life, a book of poetry by Sherry Quan Lee, first published in June 2008. For the benefit of those who don't typically look at my LibraryThing profile, I've reprinted the review I've written below, so that it might get a bit more exposure for those who might be interested in this collection.
------------------------
I've spent a substantial amount of time ruminating on Sherry Quan Lee's volume of intensely personal poetry, for lack of the right way to express my feelings about it. It's hard to make sense of a book that is so clearly an expression of genuineness -- it's almost impossible to judge it objectively. This ambivalence permeates much of the collection itself: it falls somewhere between a great achievement and something that just misses the mark.
Despite the attention-grabbing title, How to Write a Suicide Note is far from being strictly about suicide. The collection is divided into a number of sections that are best described as larger "themes," ideas that permeate the section. What Quan Lee does surprisingly well is turn the many reflections in each section into a narrative of sorts, baring her emotions about particular conflicts and then showing, often in more abstract ways, how she comes to grips with those feelings. It gives the collection a very nice sense of unity as a whole.
Where the work starts to feel a little less cogent is in the development of the individual sections. For the most part, we are allowed to see that Quan Lee is struggling with her mixed heritage, her time growing up, and her troubled past relationships. Her treatment of these topics through the poetry is involving but also a little too safe: she often conceals more than she reveals. For these reasons, much of her verse tends to get a little bit repetitive and clichéd. Where more detail could have allowed these moments to stand out from other, similar works, they instead bleed together with both contemporary poetic traditions as well as the other poems in the section. In short, there are few individual poems that stick out as being truly memorable.
Yet she is also unabashed at pointing out that the purpose of the collection is to simply get her feelings out there, and she is to be respected and admired for doing so. Regardless of whether the particular turn of phrase becomes memorable or not, the essence of the poems is intense, and the sparse, simplistic language that she uses is perfectly suited to the situation. Quan Lee, I gather, doesn't hope to change the world or open up larger avenues for multiracial peoples, but we get a strong sense of the struggle she personally must deal with. If nothing else, the collection comes off feeling (sometimes uncomfortably) like a published diary -- an individual venting and, in so doing, coping with her life.
That writing is a coping strategy is perhaps the collection's greatest strength. Littered throughout the sections, and particularly through the first section, we get wonderful imagery about the act of writing and its transformative qualities -- and it is here that Quan Lee shines. If the collection itself is an introspective look at personal demons, the treatment of the personal, individual act of writing lends an additional air of authenticity to the proceedings. It also gives the collection the sense of urgency that would otherwise be missing: we feel as if the poet needs to get the words out in order to stay alive and, for better or worse, what we are reading is the result of that intense need.
As I have already mentioned, however, with that sense of urgency comes a feeling that the collection is a bit too touch-and-go. It's hard for me to judge because I have very little experience with reading contemporary poetry, but I feel as if the collection, though already spare, could have used a little more pruning in order to truly have a stronger impact. And in the end, How to Write a Suicide Note feels like it's caught between what it is and what it wants to be, and that makes it mediocre at best. As an artifact, it is moving; as a work of literature, it is wanting.
posted by Dave at 2/22/2009 02:05:00 PM
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