Unbearable Splendor

Sun Yung Shin has a writerly practice that centers on using intellectual and formal tools to consider fundamental ideas—personal history within the political economy, parentage and parenthood, identity, binaries, what it means to be an outsider and what it means to be at home

The toggling between and counterpoint of Eastern and Western identities, cultural markers, and tropes makes for an extended essay that complicates and deepens our appreciation of Sun Yung's preoccupations, without ever presuming to answers

The poem/essay is a form that's seeing greater and greater acclaim and visibility—see Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr

Sun Yung's interest in mythology and the classics is met with an interest in zombies and clones—she finds something timeless in everything she writes about

This is a book that should appeal to readers of poetry, of essay, and ones who are interested in questions of the complexities of identity—its hybrid qualities embrace a broader audience than most poetry