This was a quick read. The poems were beautiful & very thought provoking. The wit sometimes forced me to slow down and truly appreciate the cleverness of the word choice and set up within some of the selections. I adored the cadence of every single one & will be buying a copy of this. The poems explore topics of life and death, family, racism towards Asians, identify, environmentalism, nature and its connection to us, and love.
4.75 ⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for the ARC!

Replacing the urgency of its predecessor with quiet tenderness, "Find Me as the Creature I Am" sees Emily Jungmin Yoon exploring what it means to be creaturely.

Upon a first read, these poems might strike readers as a little scruffier and scrappier than Yoon’s other work. "A Cruelty Special to Our Species" is so rooted in a particular cultural and historical experience that the shift to universality here might be viewed as simplistic.

However, with a little attention—and this is all the speaker asks for—readers are invited to consider where they fit into their ecosystem. There are still themes surrounding race and embodiment at play in this book, but they are re-contextualized through the lens of a world bigger than humanity. We read about the contrast between "Frozen II" promoting ecological care while its merchandise chokes the ocean, and we encounter the complicated ambiguities of why some animals end their lives when their partners die.

Despite the heaviness of some of the subject matter, this book feels like the relieved recognition that poetry isn’t everything. In “I leave Asia and become Asian”, the speaker follows a complex reflection on race by noting that she is “working on her life” instead of another poetry collection. The statement feels like the origin of many of these pieces, particularly in the way they favor a comfortable immediacy instead of a mechanistic, pre-meditated precision.

In other words, they feel creaturely.

Many of these poems feel like an argument for unburdened and unquestioned love—an animal reflexivity and disinterest in psychological scrutiny. They are quiet "I love yous" in the face of ecological uncertainty.

The world might end; it might not. Either way, the speaker will be with her loved ones.