Lang Leav is one of my poet heroes. Pronounced Lang “Leeyav,” I first discovered her on Twitter and never looked back. She is a success story we can only dream of becoming. Her story went like this, according to her blog and website: “I self-published my first book, Love & Misadventure. As soon as it was listed for sale, my book began to top best-seller charts and caught the attention of two literary agents in New York. I signed up with Writers House and was promptly offered a publishing deal by Andrews McMeel.” Not only that, she illustrates her own books. She, yup, is a talented artist as well. I am about to publish my first book of poems, and a little secret between us, I’ve written her to see if she might give it a read. A shot in the dark, I know, but a girl’s gotta try, right? Why the hell not? All she can do is say no or nothing…ahhhhh…but if she says, “yes.” She was born in Thailand and has won numerous awards as a best-selling author. She is the winner of a Qantas Spirit of Youth Award and coveted Churchill Fellowship. Her books continue to top bestseller charts in bookstores worldwide, and her collection Lullabies was the 2014 winner of the Goodreads Choice award for poetry. But what I love when I read some of her poetry is the way it resonates with me personally, and I love watching her love story unfold with Michael Faudet, another poet I’m madly in love with, with whom I’m sure you’re all familiar. I can relate. Again. 😉 It’s so easy to fall in love with poets we admire, isn’t it? But not everyone loves her. In an editorial written by Joshua Lee, he writes his disdain (or rather dislike) for her work. Why do I find it so amusing when people bash those who have succeeded? He writes about the dividing opinions about her work and how “more serious poets move her books to the self-help section in bookstores, while casual readers with more ‘literary’ friends treat her work like a vice to be savoured in secret.” What a snob! He continues: “What Lang Leav uses is a fluid mixture of conversational language and the traditional stanza form, which makes her text accessible to anyone who might find regular poetry intimidating. Some say it’s because of this that she doesn’t write real poetry. More disturbingly, something like ‘Soul Mates’ attempts to convince you that a mysterious ‘connection’ is all you need for love. It convinces you that your ‘connection’ has less to do with shared interests and mutual respect than it has to do with some strange look in each other’s eyes. It makes us think there are forces at work that are beyond control, that we do not need to take responsibility or be accountable for our own decisions. This is the kind of thinking that keeps us in meaningless and sometimes destructive relationships….” So I leave you today with a few of my favorite pieces of her work, and you can be the judge. Is she a trivial, toxic woman or a brilliant contemporary artist? I call her a goddess.
2 Comments
12/30/2017 12:52:57
I'll go with the brilliant contemporary artist! Great post.
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R.B.
1/4/2018 14:34:05
Then we agree! xo
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I LOVE to write and read. I particularly enjoy reading erotic romance that has tons of emotion in it. I hope you will ask me questions and share your favorite authors and novels. I welcome all feedback.
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