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Try Poetry: Baby Book + Amy Ching-Yan Lam
Amy Ching-Yan Lam describes her new poetry collection as plain, as it’s all out there for the reader to see. Today we’re given a peek into the collection Baby Book (Brick Books) with the featured poem ‘The Poet Li Bai’, which Lam describes as being one of core poems of the book.
Interview with Amy Ching-Yan Lam
ALU: When was the moment that you decided you wanted to write poetry? Describe it for our readers. Was it reading another poem? Was it listening to a poet read? Was it something different entirely?
Amy Ching-Yan Lam: I don’t think it was a decision to write poetry so much as a compulsion. Like it came out that way, and I felt the need to keep doing it.
ALU: If you had to pitch your featured poem to someone who had never read poetry before, how would you do so? What kinds of things do you think the new-to-poetry reader might find fascinating about it? What could you share about the poem’s writing process?
Amy Ching-Yan Lam: I hope that people who don’t think of themselves as poetry readers can get into my work because it’s relatively plain. My friend Dana described it as a hand sticking a plate of food out, like “Here it is, it’s on the plate.” Like it’s all there.
I wrote The Poet Li Bai early on, it’s one of the first poems in the collection. And I’ve edited this poem maybe the most times out of all of the poems in the book. But throughout all of the editing it also stayed pretty much exactly the same. I don’t know what that means—maybe it means that because this poem is at the core of the book, it needed to shift a tiny bit every time something else in the book shifted.
ALU: What’s a poetry collection or individual poem that you’d recommend to anyone looking to get into poetry?
Amy Ching-Yan Lam: I love Empathy by Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge. The balance of clarity and mystery is perfect, a perfect reflection of living.
The Poet Li Bai
From Amy Ching-Yan Lam’s collection Baby Book
In Chinese school I learned a story:
From the old lady, he learned the lesson of persistence.
The end.
The poet is in his bedroom.
He sees moonlight, like snow, on the floor.
He looks up at the moon.
He looks down and thinks of his home.
The moon shining brightly on the roof.
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Thank you to Amy Ching-Yan Lam and Brick Books for sharing ‘The Poet Li Bai’ with us. Remember, if you purchase a copy of Baby Book or any of the other featured Try Poetry collections, you’ll receive a free digital sampler containing all of our featured poems. (Purchase from All Lit Up or from your local independent bookseller; send proof of payment to hello@alllitup.ca if you purchase from your local!)
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