Jenny Xie has published poems in Harvard Review, the Literary Review, The New Republic, Tin House, and elsewhere. She teaches in the Expository Writing Program at New York University and lives in Brooklyn.
"The poems in [Xie's] crystalline debut . . . are ever alert to
the complex relationship between geography and the
self."--The New York Times Book Review "Xie comes across as a
magician of perspective and scale. . . . [Eye Level]
suggests a kind of Fodor's or Lonely Planet guide to inner
life."--The New Yorker "Xie's poems take us on a journey to
new places . . . in such vivid detail that you'll feel as if you
really traveled, as well as to new questions about immigration,
identity, and loneliness."--BuzzFeed "A discerning eye is at
work in this debut collection; Xie has a voice at once ironic and
poised, restless and deeply meditative. . . . Stealthily beautiful,
Eye Level is one of those immersive books that changes you as you
read it."--Vulture "For a poet so capable of taking readers
on far-flung journeys to places like Corfu, Cambodia, and New York,
Xie is perhaps most remarkable for her ability to take readers
deeper inside themselves than they have ever been. . . . Xie's work
is just a thing of pure, piercing beauty."--Nylon "Jenny
Xie's Eye Level . . . is a master class in shifting perspectives. .
. . With her sweeping, exact language, watching the world with Xie
is nothing but a pleasure."--Vox "Despite Xie's wide-ranging
adventures, we remain burrowed in the mind of this magnificent
poet, who braids in the lonesomeness and sorrow of being unmoored
and on your own."--The Paris Review, Staff Picks "An
excellent debut. Xie is particularly gifted with precise
description."--The Millions "The effect of reading through
[Jenny Xie's] work, whether languorously or in sudden bursts, is
recognition--you wander, and then come to the waypoint you've
sought all along."--Shondaland.com "A stunning
collection--part travel narrative, part kaleidoscopic
autobiography. . . . Xie's lively formal approach incorporates many
styles. . . . That's what makes Eye Level such an enchanting read:
its ability to be everywhere and do everything at once. It draws
its energy from all over and then finds its way directly to the
heart."--BookPage
"An exquisite interrogation of perspective and
selfhood."--Michigan Quarterly Review "Jenny Xie's
breathtaking debut is a sharp blade that opens the world like the
ripe persimmon pictured on its cover and offers us the halves to
savor. Beauty and loneliness comprise those halves, and the
delicious tension between the two propels the collection
forward."--The East Bay Review "Sublime language and keen
observations."--Publishers Weekly "In Eye Level, Jenny Xie fashions
a crystalline travelogue of restlessness. The poet's wanderings,
through cities as disparate as Phnom Penh and New York, make
manifest the communion between inner and outer worlds. It is
against those dissimilar backdrops that Xie discloses, with
precision, the dissoluble mystery of the self. Her delight in
paradox reveals, like a rain shower, a world washed clean of
habitual perception."--Judges' Citation for the National Book
Award in
Poetry
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