Melete

Jennifer Lee Tsai's first full-length poetry book explores family history, intergenerational trauma, love, loss and belonging through the perspective of a second-generation British Chinese identity. Melete interweaves dual cultures and heritages through narratives of memory, migration and mysticism across Liverpool, China and Hong Kong.

Named after the Boeotian Muse of meditation and contemplation, Melete navigates the boundaries between life and art, personhood and subjectivity, states and places of spiritual transcendence and ecstasies. This expansive book establishes a powerfully distinctive lyric voice in British poetry.