Whorled

In Whorled, Ed Bok Lee looks toward a global future, one where the dividing lines between state, religion, race, history, and culture have been blurred to the extent that the very idea of difference requires a new understanding. What does it mean to be a Global Citizen in an era of constant war, rampant industrialization, and ever-advancing technology? Whorled strives to give a voice to those left out with words of loss and longing, confrontation and celebration. From gambling Buddhists at a Midwest Native American casino, to a Russian rave, Lee’s ever-wandering cultural and spiritual nomads struggle to make sense of what it means to be a citizen of an increasingly homeless world.

Publication date: August 23, 2011

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 6 x 9

Page count: 140 pages

ISBN: 9781566892780

Thanks to a 2013 ADA Access Improvement Grant administered by VSA Minnesota for the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, this title is also formatted for screen readers which make text accessible to the blind and visually impaired. To purchase this title for use with a screen reader please email us at info@coffeehousepress.org.

Ed Bok Lee was raised in South Korea, North Dakota, and Minnesota. A former bartender, PE instructor, journalist, and translator, he studied in the U.S., South Korea, Kazakhstan, and Russia, earning an MFA from Brown University. Lee has shared his work in journals and anthologies, and on public radio and MTV, and teaches part time at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul. Lee is the author of Real Karaoke People, which was the winner of an Asian American Literary Award (Members’ Choice) and the PEN Open Book Award, and, most recently, Whorled.

Winner of the 2012 American Book Award for Poetry

“There is a nomadic beauty to Ed Bok Lee’s Whorled, which pulses with raw political anger and vital lyricism.”

—The Guardian

“[Lee's] poems are alternately devastating and grandstanding, word-drunk and built for speed.” 

—The Star Tribune

“Whorled enters fearlessly into the chaos of our social, cultural, political, and familial milieu, always with an eye toward finding the beauty among the hard truths of our situations—and fighting for them.”

—Rain Taxi

“If Ed Bok Lee still carries the sense of being an immigrant, then language—the power of words is Lee’s turf, his citizenship. . . . Lee is a prolific and diverse writer.”

—Korean Quarterly

“All of the rawness of South Minneapolis streets enlivens the page. Lee never shies away from uncovering racial hierarchies, offering an uncompromising view of America, contradictions and all.”

—Minnesota Daily

“Whorled is an inquisitive, powerful, global exploration of identity, thrumming with insight and taut phrasing.”

—City Pages

“Where Lee’s work shines . . . is in his ability to draw grace from the most forlorn, even squalid, scenarios, and his careful attention to voice. The various friends, overheard strangers, lovers, and family members that populate his poems sparkle with the full roundness of life.”

—The Margins

“Sometimes a poem stops you in your tracks. Today I had that experience while reading Ed Bok Lee’s new collection Whorled.”

—MPR

“Funny, slyly political, and gorgeous. Working with a variety of forms and modes, Ed Bok Lee rocks my socks off. I love this book.”

—Sherman Alexie

“These poems work in powerful concert to give body to an entire world of beauty, terror, loss, grief, and joy. What a moving read is Whorled.”

—Li-Young Lee

“In ways few Americans have attempted, Whorled takes on that challenge, deepening the reader into true soul work, grief and love for our human fragility.”

—David Mura

“Atavistic arias and hip-hop haiku, memoir and mash-up, poetry and prose, Lee has serious game. Who else works with a lens this wide, this gracefully?”

—Dobby Gibson