Unearthings

Unearthings by Chen, Wendy. Paperback edition. ISBN: 9781935635802.

"Chens sense of history is reason enough to appreciate her poetry, but equally thrilling is her language." --The Rumpus "Unearthings is clear as spring water and fast moving and baptismal in its ice and fire. Chen will say anything so long as its both beautiful and true." --Mary Karr "One way to read Chens book is as an arresting new point in a line of postconfessional poets (like Anne Carson or Monica Youn) who consider the tangle of emotions within close relationships." --Harvard Review "Nothing is wasted on pretenses--the language is beautiful and lyrical, but it has a marvelous momentum and tells only the truth." --Atticus Review UNEARTHINGS, the fourth selection in Tavern Books Wrolstad Contemporary Poetry Series, unfolds by way of an elegant, steadfast voice that is unafraid to confront the complexities of cultural, ancestral, and familial inheritance. Exploring her identity as an Asian American woman, Chen deftly negotiates the body and its archives, summoning and exorcising the ghosts therein. In this unforgettable debut work, Chen deciphers and breaks the many silences that are expected and enforced.