In Taking Apart a Kaleidoscope, by Adam Zhou

Description

When can you tell a book of poems is really working? For me, it’s when the poems provide revolutions on themes—like the tiniest clink of a kaleidoscope. Look at how Adam Zhou recognizes what stays with us, how “the landscape will remain sullen / still dressed in a sullen light” and yet the people are always leaving and returning, wounded or memory or truly breathing, even in stillness. Zhou’s lyrics are a personal history unfolding before us. In a world where poems can shatter us in the best way, In Taking Apart a Kaleidoscope reminds us that “there’s something new if your heart hasn’t stopped”—that we must dissect whatever comes up and hold it to light. —Carly Joy Miller

In Taking Apart a Kaleidoscope is an arrangement of burning flowers. Adam Zhou has mastered the narrative of displacement. A world where people and objects are cloaked in words with multiple meanings. A house where “locks prefer not to accept keys.” Through these poems a young speaker reconciles collisions of language, culture, and family. With great attention to craft, Zhou finds his voice in a fractured world. —“I’ll collect the jagged pieces. Put them in a plastic bag.” —Robert Carr