Not being a poet, talking about poetry can be strenuous. I don’t have the terminology, the right ways to express my poetic thoughts. In Mitochondrial Night by Ed Bok Lee, though, I found another language that I knew – astronomy, anthropology, science. I found these poems moving both in how Lee managed to find relationships between what may sometimes seems as “cold” facts and the “warmth” of love and life.
In “Metamorphosis” I really resonated with the relation of a mundane action of aging with historical disappearances that have taken on the magic of mythos. In “Playhouse” not only does the language capture my attention, but the meditation on the intersection of female lives is interesting. I enjoyed “Gossip” which seemed somewhat “tongue in cheek” to me, while still delivering a philosophical and ethical “oomph.” Many of the poems are also about parenting, like “Garden Lesson” and “Space” and the theme of parenthood and children is woven through many of the other poems. In all, no matter the language, there’s much to be found in Ed Bok Lee’s Mitochondrial Night.