
The problem of deer by Lydia T. Liu
The problem of deer is a lyrical exploration of the transitory landscapes that shape a diasporic experience. It traces the shifting cartographies of the heart, moving from the dissonances of history and geographical origins to the multiplicities of desire and language. These poems find beauty in their gentle yet persistent interrogations—through the voice of a young peripatetic.
In Lydia T. Liu‘s The problem of deer, a colonial administration is both augured and commemorated as the “place that’s also a problem.” In a parallel register, the “almost closure of the mouth” does the work of a gate. What emerges, what slips through? Poems, testimonies, compressed thoughts, a dream in which national borders no longer exist, but also colors, pliable anthropologies of all kinds. –Bhanu Kapil