The Yellowing Roots of Not 否之糜根

Bilingual edition of The Yellowing Roots of Not, translated by the author herself.
 
The Yellowing Roots of Not is a gorgeous and fiercely wild book. It would not have needed to namecheck Alejandra Pizarnik for me to think of her: both she and Yě Yě break and remake language in the most emotionally intense ways—in ways that emerge from an experience of loneliness and displacement, "as if a plant has been rooted out of the soil it belongs to.” Severed from stability, Yě reenacts this severing in language:"a pail of seasons drowned to live"; "All we have left is blank stares" that "glide across our empty chests, like / a school of homeless swallows"; the "paper...bleeding itself blind." This is a book that can be read quickly for these unlexicalized intensities, but read it slowly and many other things emerge: "[T]here's no way to lid it.” I will keep this book on my most sacred shelf.                            
                         —David Gorin, author of To a Distant Country, editor of The Constant Critic and winner of 2023 Emily Dickinson Award