READING IN BED
IS LIKE HEAVEN
IS LIKE HEAVEN
by Ed Bok Lee
There is a lamp on my table.
And the house is in the book.
—Edmond Jabès
And now I see it’s not the meanings I loved most
demolishing each labyrinth flooded with belief,
but the quandaries—
arrived like curious spirits
on the precipice of trauma or sleep—
Worlds inside words
paginated & unspooling—
a knotted core of images.
Like a strange animal breathing
the amber linen of an old book on rare gems
in search of a new home to die in.
_____________________________________________________
Ed Bok Lee is the author of Whorled, a book of poems
published in 2011 by Coffee House Press. The collection
won a 2012 American Book Award and the Minnesota Book
Award in Poetry. His previous work received a PEN Open
Book Award and an Asian American Literary Award
(Members’ Choice). Lee grew up in South Korea, North
Dakota, and Minnesota. Currently, he teaches at Metropolitan
State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. “Reading in Bed Is
Like Heaven” will be included in his newest book of poetry,
Mitochondrial Night, which is forthcoming from Coffee
House Press in early 2019.
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2018 Home ►
There is a lamp on my table.
And the house is in the book.
—Edmond Jabès
And now I see it’s not the meanings I loved most
demolishing each labyrinth flooded with belief,
but the quandaries—
arrived like curious spirits
on the precipice of trauma or sleep—
Worlds inside words
paginated & unspooling—
a knotted core of images.
Like a strange animal breathing
the amber linen of an old book on rare gems
in search of a new home to die in.
_____________________________________________________
Ed Bok Lee is the author of Whorled, a book of poems
published in 2011 by Coffee House Press. The collection
won a 2012 American Book Award and the Minnesota Book
Award in Poetry. His previous work received a PEN Open
Book Award and an Asian American Literary Award
(Members’ Choice). Lee grew up in South Korea, North
Dakota, and Minnesota. Currently, he teaches at Metropolitan
State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. “Reading in Bed Is
Like Heaven” will be included in his newest book of poetry,
Mitochondrial Night, which is forthcoming from Coffee
House Press in early 2019.
◄ Previous page Apple Valley Review, Fall 2018 Home ►
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Apple Valley Review:
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 13, Number 2
(Fall 2018)
Copyright © 2018
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
A Journal of Contemporary
Literature
ISSN 1931-3888
Volume 13, Number 2
(Fall 2018)
Copyright © 2018
by Leah Browning, Editor.
All future rights to material
published in the Apple
Valley Review are retained
by the individual authors
and artists.
www.applevalleyreview.com
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