The Bees Make Money In The Lion by Lo Kwa Mei-en

THE BEES MAKE MONEY IN THE LION is a journey across a dizzying landscape of immigrants and androids, of alien romance and elegies. Here we encounter a language that is both familiar and estranging: phones burble, voices tune by 'auto-fable,' and we are kicked 'in the essay.' Lo Kwa Mei-en is a formalist trickster: her aubades, sonnets, and pastorals are like none you've ever read before, stuttering with rapid- fire rhymes and repetitions, pulling you through unexpected swerves. Reading this remarkable collection is like 'downloading a copy of a consciousness FAQ,' finding within it a fractured yet powerful voice. 'Voltas fail' and forms falter, but Lo Kwa Mei-en's poems declare: 'here we are, unhurt nowhere, / editing violence until we dawn.'