Lucy Van reviews The Yellow Emperor
'The writing is beautiful, but the way in which it is beautiful matters'
‘Leber is a Melbourne-based poet and clinician of Chinese Medicine, and in this, her second volume of poetry, she merges the two practices in an archaeological translation of Han mythology that finds its art through listening to the body...
The work, part verse-novel, part poetic mythography, imagines the origins of the Yellow Emperor legend by dramatizing the core principles of Chinese Medicine. The project is certainly impressive in scope, a daring and highly ambitious application of the diagnostic art to the purpose of mythological reconstruction…
Leber should be commended for her facility for the short line, which underpins her poetry’s enigmatic kinesis...
The Yellow Emperor will reward readers keen to follow a bold experiment in mythological reconstruction, and Leber’s strengths in stylistic execution and research, which is breathtaking in scope, are manifest throughout the collection…
… a thought-provoking experiment, and a wild one…’
Photos: Di Cousens - The launch of The Yellow Emperor at Seamstress
Cover Image: Guan Wei, Buddha's Hand No 1, Courtesy of Arc One Gallery & the artist.
“Leber is adept at suggesting characteristics of the Chinese “original”, as it were, while generating compelling poetry in modern English.”
“The Yellow Emperor’ is a strange but curiously satisfying achievement. ”
“Suspended at the fertile and altogether uncertain point between ancient reality and cultural invention, Leber’s is a richly-formed effort of research and imagination”
“ultimately a dedicated work of art”