Beasting - Timothy Ree

The speaker's language is lyrical, private, devotional almost, at other times a code-switching irreverent and raucous melding of street slang and religious tropes, a distinct minority voice of urban immigrant resilience and creative potential. In turns both surreal and grounded in the particularities of Korean American experience, this debut collection explores the intersections of race, politics, and family dynamics from the onset and the continued health crisis of the pandemic. In one poem the speaker asks, "How many dogs ago / were we wolves? How bout we amble / the ask of the day down a hallway / of sunflowers?" As the title suggests, this is a book of transformations - of evolving or devolving - into the beasts we once were or must soon learn to be, to survive with dignity in an era of panic, seclusion, xenophobia, and political tribalism. A timely blend of family portrait, lyric poetry, and political call toward greater Asian American visibility and immigrant resistance in this country.