A beautiful collection of poetry! I loved the way the author looked at words as interpreted through cultural lenses and how she tied those words back to her sense of self, her cultural heritage, and her understanding of the world. Her poems reminded me a bit of a Billy Collins collection just in the way she notices and spends time with the little things in our lives and how those moments always don't connect the way I expected them to in the poem. It took me a while to move through the text but only because I can't read poetry all at once - you need to sit with each poem and not rush. Highly recommended. ( )

This is one of the most prescient, beautiful, and honest books of poetry I've read in recent years. I don't normally recommend poetry to my wife, but this one made the list. Ae Hee Lee's Asterism is a tour of a life lived in many places but never being from those places. These are vignettes of pain through the eyes of a constant stranger. As with a lot of great verse, where there is hurt, there is hope. Where there is hunger, there is humanity. If you get a chance to pick this one up, please do. ( )

For being such a slim book it’s filled with such moving words. I’ve been sharing my favorites with family and recommending it to my poetry people. Wonder work and so glad to have in my collection. I hope that I’ll be able to find others that will enjoy just as much ( )

Asterism is a beautiful and moving collection of poems that reflect a young Korean woman's immigrant experience. Her imagery, her voice, her experiences take one's breath away. Profound and succinct, Lee's poems chronicle her feelings of alienation and rootlessness. Her use of language is rich and unique, as are her associations with food and the journey that memories take us on.

As an immigrant myself, I could relate to Lee's experiences. In some instances I felt that she gave voice to things I had sensed, but never articulated in the same way. Asterism is an important contribution to immigrant poetry.

Asterism is a slim book filled with splendid details and deep substance. The poems reverberate with a sense of exploration for both identity and place. Events and relationships are uniquely developed with descriptions of food, meals, plants and flowers. The author’s life is multi-layered and tinged with longing, but she brings an undeniable sense of intelligence and humanity to that longing, and to that life. ( )