Funny, heartbreaking, haunting: Jane Yeh's poems open windows onto utterly strange – and eerily familiar – worlds. Lonely ghosts hover around children on their way to school; lilies whisper among themselves, their heads '"filled with pollen and boredom". Three solemn children in a Van Dyck portrait gaze out into their futures.
Moving between high art and pop culture, Yeh creates richly textured poems, their lyrical beauty cut with a dark wit. How do we face death, how survive loss? What does it take to carry on? "O tempura, O monkeys".
About the Author
Jane Yeh was born in America and educated at Harvard University. She holds master's degrees from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Manchester Metropolitan University. Her first full-length collection, "Marabou", was published by Carcanet in 2005 and shortlisted for the Whitbread, Forward, and Aldeburgh Festival poetry prizes. Her chapbook, "Teen Spies", was published in 2003 by Metre Editions. Her acclaimed second collection, "The Ninjas", was published by Carcanet in 2012.
Currently Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University, she also teaches residential courses for the Arvon Foundation and writes on books, theatre, fashion, and sport for publications including "The Times Literary Supplement", "Poetry Review", "Time Out", and "The Village Voice". She has been the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a residency at Yaddo. She lives in London.
Reviews
"The Ninjas is profound, funny and sad, reminding us that humans and androids are lonely and need love, and that attention to detail and kindness to animals can make a better world. This quirky and wise collection has outstanding originality and poise" – Aingeal Clare, Guardian
"Jane Yeh's The Ninjas is as unsettling and funny as its cover image... One is tempted to gobble down the exquisite poems one after another..." – Sarah Coles, New Welsh Review
"She is a brilliant technician. Her acute visual sensibility, the sensuousness of her descriptions, her gift for the creation of striking metaphors, her sensitive orchestration of sounds and the precision of her thought are all rich sources of pleasure for the reader" – Edmund Prestwich, Acumen
