Wu Wei Eats an Egg

<p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>Wu Wei Eats an Egg</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)> introduces fascinating Dutch poet Lucas Hirsch. Alternatingly enraged at and bemused by the 21st century with its traps of bourgeois excess addiction and hollow language Hirsch regularly explores the interior self familial history and the physical world (in which a tree writ[es] a poem each day in front of the speaker's window). Both personally expressionistic and socially engaged Hirsch's poems feel like some combination of Allen Ginsberg Adrienne Rich and later Franz Wright. There's also an exhilarating mix of reverence and irreverence popular culture and high literature-something translator Donna Spruijt-Metz captures brilliantly in her English versions of Hirsch's poems. This book offers a unique and exciting enlargement of our understanding of 21st century poetry.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>-</span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>Wayne Miller</strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)> author of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>The End of Childhood</em></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>What to admire most in Lucas Hirsch's</span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)> Wu Wei Eats an Egg</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>? It's hard to say since I admire so much. Certainly I was caught first by Hirsch's cool read of contemporary culture: its automation and stresses the poet's ambivalent investment. Then I thought about emotion the keen raw precision of the book's evocation of grief-and also alongside grief love joy and wonder hope even indifference. I'm struck by the structure of both of the book and its poems and by the poet's controlled restlessness through various forms so many crucial ideas. But evidently what I like best about this book is that I know I'll come back to it again and again. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>Wu Wei Eats an Egg</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)> is profound provocative and beautifully done.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>-</span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>Dave King</strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)> author of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(10 0 0 1)>The Ha-Ha</em></p><p></p>