One thing about Tess Liem's debut collection Obits. is recurrence. Names, acts, journeys keep coming around, in newly familiar contexts.
Connected with this is a lot of moving around underground: transport in the form of escalators, trains, inner pressure.
Liem captures the commute as daily process and as language, frequently changing one thing for another: "I am allowed distance I am a loud distance" ("Obit. [A distance & I am allowed]").
The poems I enjoy most in this book play with variations on the aptly named "Obit." or "Obit." In these, Liem's intensely personal and yet -- or therefore -- weirdly
recognizable narrator is riding an escalator or stepping onto a train or
jostling or waiting beside the many others of the moving world.
Here's one:
Connected with this is a lot of moving around underground: transport in the form of escalators, trains, inner pressure.
Liem captures the commute as daily process and as language, frequently changing one thing for another: "I am allowed distance I am a loud distance" ("Obit. [A distance & I am allowed]").
The poems I enjoy most in this book play with variations on the aptly named "Obit." or "
Here's one:
Obit.
An exit,
though I notice
many of the fire escapes
in Montreal duplexes
are stairs within storage spaces
leading to lower storage spaces
& I fantasize about riding the metro
all day, as if
its motion might
move me.
Tess Liem's collection Obits. was published by Coach House Press in 2018.