Mosquito & Ant: Poems

by Kimiko Hahn

Book Overview

Mosquito and Ant refers to the style in which nu fu - a nearly extinct script used by Chinese women to correspond with one another - is written. In these poems, the narrator corresponds with L about her hidden passions, her relationship with her husband and daughters, lost loves and fantasies.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393047326
• ISBN13: 9780393047325
• Release Date: May 1999
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 102 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A collection of humor, pathos and biting wit

Sly wit and biting observations on contemporary womanhood couched in the context of Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book and ancient Chinese and Japanese poets. I loved these poems, the adventurous avenues, the casual everyday activities juxtaposed with the startling image and wrenching confessions.

Great Poetry

I loved this book by Kimiko Hahn--the range, the inventivenss, the sense of play. I appreciate how her writing is enlivened by contemporary criticism and cultural studies while still being grounded in history and literature and apt observations of the world and its inhabitants.

Direct and subtle

Those familiar with Kimiko Hahn's previous collection, The Unbearable Heart, will find the same deeply personal quality but slightly brighter; no longer only on the subject of grief, Hahn shares other longings and speculations. These works are beautiful language without any of the unnecessary; simple and meaningful images, and direct ponderings.