Tag Archives: Free Verse

BOOK REVIEW: The Wet Hex by Sun Yung Shin

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The Wet HexThe Wet Hex by Sun Yung Shin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Amazon.in Page

Out: June 14, 2022

This is a varied collection of poems. It includes sparse free verse poems as well as prose-style poems. There are a number of stream-of-consciousness poems that read like surreal free writing, but there’s also a narrative poem and a number of clean prose-like poems.

The poet is of Korean ethnicity, and her heritage and the experience of being a transplanted individual both feature prominently in her poems. (Though Greek Mythology is also about as common as Korea Folklore in the poems.] The poems also display a fascination with words and as well as with violence.

The poems are divided into five sections. Section three is unique in that includes the collection’s longest poem, a narrative poem, which is presented with some simple, geometric artworks.

I enjoyed reading this collection, it employs clever language and interesting approaches to verse, both among the more cryptic, freeform entries and the neater, more “business-like” poems.


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Tractor [Free Verse]

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the tractor idles in the end-row,
chugging and sputtering,
with a rattling exhaust flap

soon the tractor lurches
into straight-line locomotion,
chugging down the row,
carving out furrows,
peeling soft, black soil aside

the cut worm does not forgive,
but neither does it know
what hit it --
some thunderous storm,
monotonously rolling nearer -
becoming more all-pervading -
until it starts to fade,
but by then
 the worm is halved

everything becomes something else:
worm aerates soil
and 
then becomes food for the 
tugging bird

The War Mangled [Free Verse]

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I heard the dead children,
their voices lilting on the wind.

The war-torn twice born
came crawling in under the wire,
bloody and shell-shocked,
but among the living, 

but the rest floated away:
their words
becoming both milder 
& more raucous,
never fully drowned out by
bombs or crossfire chaos.

Anonymous [Free Verse]

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scribe & chronicler:

face unknown,
name unknown,
soul laid bare by way of words --

words that reveal from
the inside out --

it's not the way 
we're accustomed 
to getting acquainted

we're used to surface learning
'til we scratch through,

but here we have:
no name,
no face,
but deep insight

Madman of the Empty Valley [Free Verse]

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Thang Tong Gyalpo,

They called him:
Maker of Iron Bridges, 
King of the Empty Plain,
"Excellent Persistence,"
& 
Madman of the Empty Valley

You might not like your bridge-maker
sharing mind & body 
with a madman,
but some of his 15th century bridges
are still in use today.

Sunrise Over the Mountain [Free Verse]

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sunlight pours over the mountain,
cascading into the valley,
drawing all eyes into its blinding whiteness

too much light enters my eye
just as too much information, 
sometimes,
enters my mind

and, yet, i peer through the searing pain -
just for the view

Fungi Propinquity [Free Verse]

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two tender, little mushrooms
stand amid a mossy expanse

i'm moved by their intimate proximity

though i don't know it to be
anything other than a
random molecular fact,

and yet it speaks to me,
and i feel proximity & distance
all the more intensely

Temple on a Hill [Free Verse]

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granite bubbled out of the jungle,
and - upon it - they built a temple

its walls were anchored into stone
until its walls were the hill,
and the hill was its walls

and no one could find one true point
at which one ended & the other began

was it built to be 
closer to the heavens,
or further from hell?

not by people for whom
heaven & hell
reside in the mind --
unattainable by velocity,
inescapable by distance --
constant traveling companions
only confronted head-on

maybe they wanted it to feel
permanent,
knowing even that granite
would crumble in due time

Future Imperfect [Free Verse]

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3 
skyscrapers rise & fall
storms hit & wither
waves crash & recede

nature neither blesses nor curses,
despite the constant counting 
of its boons & banes; 
its bonanzas & broken bones

one who can feel grateful 
in the face 
of ignorance & imperfection
is free 

one who feels suffering 
in the absence of perfect comfort
will never know freedom 

such a one as that 
imprisons himself
in a cycle of imagining 
& coveting 
a perfection that has 
never existed

Train Rattled [Free Verse]

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It's like sticking one's head
out the window of the southbound
night train.

A rushing thunder fills the ears --
almost deafening --
and that's before
the passing northbound train
shears past,

letting wail the whistle
in one long blow.

And (now) one is deaf,
but the cyclone eddies 
shake one's flesh
& 
rattle through one's bones 
so hard that one can 
whole body hear:
one's entire skeleton 
vibrating like those tiny
inner ear bones. 

It was dark before the
scintillant streams of strobing light
burned a void into one's picture place.

There's no smelling a thing
in that crossfire hurricane,

but one can taste big gulps
of train exhaust --
exhaust with a 
cotton candy consistency 
but foul tasting
to the last bite.


And then it is quiet
and dark
and peaceful,

and it's not clear whether
one is alive or dead,

and it's not clear whether 
one cares whether
 one is alive or dead.