A Place Where Clouds Are Flowing by Han-Jae Lee

In A Place Where Clouds Are Flowing, Han-Jae Lee invites the reader to enter a world where all things are suffused with life— where “the spider is conceiving a dream of a loving nest,” “wild steel has no choice/ but to succumb/after getting red in the face,” and even cigarette butts “endure the pain of constant biting.” Lee’s is a restrained and careful style which includes desire and longing, both for the poet’s homeland and the past. The poet seems most at home in nature and many of the finest poems occur here, where “the aching remembrance of past seasons is not forgotten/But the fragrance of the flowers tempt me to go out into the grass/and the tender smile of the southern breeze pulls at my hair.” Lee’s is a world of metaphor, where fireflies are light and a deceased mother is a magnolia tree. The transformations inherent in these poems speak of parallel worlds and uninhibited possibilities.

–Magdalena Montagne, poet-teacher

Han-Jae Lee offers the reader an exquisite view of nature, love, and relationships. With his imaginative senses he reports on an inner world full of love, sorrow, pain, and paradox. In “Another World,” “Lilacs Bloom Again” and “Magnolia” he gives voice to the secret life of flowers, as well as to poignant lost love. The poems follow Han-Jae Lee from his home in Korea to the streets of New York City, revealing a unique view of the beauty among the wreckage, and brilliant light among the flowers. A Place Where Clouds are Flowing is a vibrant, eloquent book.

–Joan Rose Staffen, writer, artist, counselor