an-hwei lee

A collection of poems that blesses the reader with a spirit of hope, solace, and inspiration in their own seasons of adversity.

The Beautiful Immunity asks how we create good in an imperfect world of fallible souls. Spare and formally daring, these poems were refined through the catastrophes of wildfires, recession, and a major public health crisis through the hope of a beautiful immunity-an everlasting salve for the lost. This slender volume reads as the culmination of more than a decade’s worth of labor, documenting large-scale social, cultural, and political upheavals, as well as the moment when the word ＂anthropause＂ floated indelibly into the world’s vocabulary.

Karen An-hwei Lee earned an MFA from the Program in Literary Arts at Brown University and a PhD in British & American Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship, Lee currently serves in the administration at Point Loma Nazarene University in Southern California. She is the author of the poetry collections Phyla of Joy and Ardor, both also published by Tupelo Press, as well as The Maze of Transparencies and In Medias Res. She is also the author of a novel, Sonata in K and a book of literary criticism, Anglophone Literatures in the Asian Diaspora, and she is the translator of Doubled Radiance: Poetry & Prose of Li Qingzhao, the first volume in English to collect Li’s work in both genres.