Replica

Lisa Low is the author of Crown for the Girl Inside, winner of the Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest from YesYes Books. Her poems have appeared in Copper Nickel, Ecotone, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and elsewhere, and her nonfiction was awarded the Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize. The recipient of a Pushcart Prize, she earned her MFA from Indiana University and PhD from the University of Cincinnati. She lives in Chicago.

"Low's debut collection is one of reflection, interrogation, and clarity. . . . A surprising and tremendous work." - (Booklist (starred review)) "An electric debut. . . . With incredible wit, charm, and raw emotion, Low redefines the possibilities around thinking and writing about identity and the power of representing oneself in the world. . . . An utter delight from start to finish." - (Chicago Review of Books) "Many writers of color can relate to the paranoia that comes with having to speak for an entire race. . . . Low's writing prompts us to wonder what else we might put our creative energies toward were we not made to explain our every move in order to render ourselves legible. . . . A book of reconciliations: between who society expects us to be and who we are; between what our love looks like to others and what it really is; between the need to justify our existence and letting our defiance speak for itself." - (Tone Madison) "Low articulates layers of inside, outside, around and through with smart and sly lyrics. . . . An assemblage of sharp, subtle and self-aware lines, the poems of Replica hold intriguing rhythms; lines that thrust and parry, dodge; a lightness that neither denies nor refuses their weight. She explores form, yet manages to not be constrained by those forms, each new exploration an opening into further possibility." - Rob Mclennan “The core questions of Replica—around power and proximity, interracial relationships and white guilt, and mental health—‘sing in the darkness’ in poems that quite literally take up space, that flood the whiteness of the page.” - Chet'la Sebree “Replica is a lyrical reckoning. Low unravels complex layers of selfhood through hybrid prose poems, ars poeticas, and odes, and goes all in—rattling whiteness with necessary directness.” - Jane Wong “A haunting study in self-portraiture. Low’s wry, winning humor mixes with her unsparing poignancy, bidding us to see each other, and ourselves, better.” - Philip Metres

• Replica 1 Forty Years At Target in Bloomington Ode to Maxi Pads The Other Asian Girl Cut Dollhouse If Memory Is a House At My Uncle’s Deathbed Real Life Appearances Extraction Recurring Dreams of Marrying My Childhood Crushes from the Chinese Bible Church of Maryland My First Beet-Colored Pee 2 Mail-Order Groom People Who Look Like You 3 Aubade White Spaces Crown for the Girl Inside 4 Ars Poetica Party Anxiety Feedback Loop Ars Poetica Nine Apologies Palinode Ode to Armpit Hair Ars Poetica Acknowledgments Notes