Seven Studies for a Self Portrait

"Seven Studies for a Self Portrait," Jee Leong Koh's third book of poems, subjects the self to an increasingly complex series of personal investments and investigations. Ever-evolving, ever-improvisatory, the self appears first as a suite of seven ekphrastic poems, then as free verse profiles, riddles, sonnet sequences, and finally a divan of forty-nine ghazals. The discovery the book makes at the end is that the self sees itself best when it is not by itself. "Seven Studies for a Self Portrait," "Profiles," "I Am My Names," "What We Call Vegetables," "Translations of an Unknown Mexican Poet," "Bull Eclogues" and "A Lover's Recourse."