“Bucket of Belief,” “Innocence Rosy as Fiery Clouds Burned to Bare Boughs,” and “Midsummer in the Bahamas” by Xiaoly Li appeared in Issue 32 and can be read here.
We’d love to hear more about “Midsummer in the Bahamas.”
The ocean is lively and powerful, yet can be very humbling. This experience in the Bahamas was a near life & death situation. After the last effort failed, peace settled in and the scene was ravishing. At the time I remembered the Titanic, the heroic men playing music until the last moment. I could hear them in the air.
What was the most difficult part of this poem?
Writing the ending took me some time. I wanted to make it relevant to my culture and understandable by readers, yet not sentimental.
Recommend a book which was published within the last decade.
I’ll recommend the book: Rift, Poems by Barbara Helfgott Hyett.
It was published over a decade ago, but it’s special to me. Our beloved workshop teacher, Barbara, wrote this book. She had guided me on the wonderful journey of poetry. Her insights and creativity were life changing.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
I imagine having a drink with the poet Ilya Kaminsky might be very interesting.
If you hear him read his poetry, he has so much passion and joy. His poems are very elegant.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I’m composing two books of my poetry. One might be titled Across the Pacific, another might be called Your Breath Mingles with Theirs. Many poems are accompanied with photos I have taken. I will try to finish and submit each manuscript soon.
In the meantime I continue to read and write poems.
Our thanks to Xiaoly for taking the time to answer a few questions and share these poems. Read “Bucket of Belief,” “Innocence Rosy as Fiery Clouds Burned to Bare Boughs,” and “Midsummer in the Bahamas” here: https://www.sequestrum.org/the-poetry-of-xiaoly-li.
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Xiaoly Li is a poet, photographer and computer engineer who lives in Massachusetts. Her poetry is forthcoming or has recently appeared in Spillway, American Journal of Poetry, PANK, Atlanta Review, Chautauqua, Rhino, Cold Mountain Review, J Journal and elsewhere; and in several anthologies. Xiaoly is a 2022 recipient of Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship Grant in Poetry. She received her Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Masters in computer science and engineering from Tsinghua University in China.