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[APPLAUSE]

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Jeffrey Yang's An
Aquarium is one

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of the strangest
poetry books I've read,

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and I like strange ones.

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With the creatures
in An Aquarium,

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Yang combines alphabet with
science, war, metaphor,

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religion, philosophy,
translation,

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politics, and colors.

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He spins the fabulous
into the realistic,

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the hilarious into the
horrible, and the scientific

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becomes emotional.

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Like a scholar with
nitrogen narcosis,

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like the son of a
chemist and mystic,

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he calls materials
from diverse spheres,

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then places them in the tank.

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When I enter a Yang poem, I
have no idea how I might exit.

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An octopus, he starts,
with a belief held

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by the Tikopians, a
Polynesian island community,

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that an octopus is both "a
mountain with tentacle streams

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and the sun with its rays,
so should not be eaten,"

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and ends the poem with "mind
ether spirit unhindered."

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These poems fold
into themselves,

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transforming non-sequiturs
into a meditation with backbone

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with lyricism.

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Listen to "Octopus"
one more time.

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Can you feel the echo of "a
mountain with tentacle streams"

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and "mind ether" as well
as "the sun with its rays"

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and "spirit unhindered."

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These poems deliver the
strangeness of our world

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and how we might
avoid inhumanity

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by nurturing our connection
to not only these creatures,

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but also each other.

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Jeffrey Yang is also the
author of Vanishing-Line,

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the translator of Liu Xiaobo's
June 4th Elegies, Su Shi's East

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Slope, and an anthology
of classic Chinese poems

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called Rhythm 226.

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The editor of Birds, Beasts,
and Seas-- nature poetry

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from New Directions-- and
co-editor of Two Lines's

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Some Kind of
Beautiful Signal, he

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works as an editor at New
Directions Publishing.

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Please join me in
welcoming Jeffrey Yang.

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[APPLAUSE]

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