THE TENDERNESS OF GLASS

A moving portrait of strength, renewal, and hope, told in narrative verse and prose poetry.

Lin’s work is a daring fusion of myth and memory, in which the journey of a goddess becomes inseparable from the author’s own. The collection carries readers through trauma and renewal in a haunting, lyrical exploration of resilience that lingers long after the final page. Structured into six sections, echoing the stages of life and death within the Tibetan Bardo, the book weaves together themes of identity, mental health, and spiritual transcendence. The poetic forms can be challenging—fragmented, elusive, and sometimes resembling shards of a broken mirror—but the disjointed style effectively underscores the work’s thematic concerns. Vivid imagery and striking metaphors ground the experimental framework, distilling recognizable human struggles into artful reflections. At its core, the narrative follows the Goddess Palden Lhamo as she traverses the underworld toward her next incarnation: Jodi, a transgender Pacific Islander whose life in the United States is shaped by trauma and abuse. (“The body she chooses is me,” writes the poet in an author’s note). Some poems demand slow rereading, while others drift quietly by. The collection is strongest in its more frenzied and unpredictable works, which feel as if the poet captured them in the heat of the moment. Beneath the rawness lies a powerful meditation on karma, regret, and the precarious nature of choice: “Karma is constantly changing,” the speaker observes at one point.“I missed my chance to be the sacred queen. I was scared. In a split second the fear changed my fate. Perhaps the consequence was life.” These moments crystallize the book’s preoccupation with destiny and its reversals, broadening into ambitious explorations of suicide, time, and rebirth. With works that slide through centuries, continents, and lifetimes, Lin shapes a narrative that feels both intimate and universal, telling deeply personal stories of illness, heartbreak, and strength.

A resonant meditation on rebirth and the enduring human desire for transformation.