Artist’s and Editor’s Notes
Editor’s Note: In 2025, new words {press} published Jodi Lin’s The Tenderness of Glass, which I reviewed here in Cable Street, with two other books, Witnesses Bearing Witness with Wit. You can get it here. The back of the book has this description: “Part memoir and part manifesto, Jodi Lin’s debut collection, The Tenderness of Glass, is a non-traditional book of narrative verse and prose poetry. Each of the book’s six parts are named after a Tibetan Buddhist Bardo. Jodi identifies as a gender-expansive poet, filmmaker and a person who hears voices. Taiwanese of the Seediq Tribe, they are currently based in Manhattan.” And Eileen Myles wrote: “Rapturous, ornate, straight-shooting, dirty and fun, contemporary AND ancient. This is the most various of poetry books I’ve ever read. Jodi Lin has done it all and this book of theirs, The Tenderness of Glass, is such a gift.”
Jan Schmidt
Artist’s Note: In The Tenderness of Glass (new words {press}, 2025), I uplift my relationship to a non-consensus reality; a reality in which I am the reincarnation of the Tibetan Goddess of Wrath, Palden Lhamo, eventually to become the Queen of Tibet. I was a poet devoted to a voice in my head. Believing the voice was the manifestation of my “Wise Mind,” I affectionately called her WIm. By writing WIm’s insights and predictions into a book, I was certain that I had found a way to co-exist with the voices I have experienced since I was a child.
Bonded by virtue of a shared body, I was enamored with the abundance of information WIm related to me about my past and future lives. WIm and I were enmeshed. Journeying through life’s challenges together, I would hear her narratives whispered into my ear and be given hope for a better tomorrow. As I write this, I find myself at a turning point.
By WIm’s account, The Tenderness of Glass was to win a prestigious book award. The award would set us on a path to the throne and to the eventual liberation of the water source in Tibet. Unfortunately, we did not win. Since the time of her error, I’ve stopped listening to WIm. The resulting loss of hope has made my break up with WIm the hardest of any passing relationship I have ever experienced.
I don’t hear WIm anymore. After 6 years of devotion, WIm and I have parted ways. My mental landscape has changed. What’s left of one of the most important relationships of my life thus far is The Tenderness of Glass– a book of nearly abandoned poetry devoted to a voice that no longer exists, and a writer that no longer knows how to relate to it. Each piece in The Tenderness of Glass resides in the ghost realm of who I could have been. Bare witness to WIm’s glory in the following excerpt while I simultaneously bid her goodbye.
Jodi Lin
Jodi Lin Reading excerpts from The Tenderness of Glass
Part II, Bardo of Dreams
II.II AUDIO
I want to remember every detail but my royal heart won’t give it
all back to me. I called the police and told them there were
three human skulls under my bed. They came with the
hazardous materials truck, expecting bodies, blood and
carnage. Finding no skulls the line of questioning went
something like this— Do you know what day it is, Miss? Do you
know where you are? Do you know who the president is? When
was the last time that you ate? When was the last time that you
slept? Did somebody hurt you? Or try to hurt you? Something
like this. I don’t know what I said. I didn’t pass the test. They
asked me to close my apartment window. They suggested I
grab my coat. They suggested I grab my keys. An ID. I put on
my fanciest coat with my fanciest hat. Handed my keys, phone,
and ID to an officer as though she worked for me. And…I was
escorted to an ambulance. A technician took my vitals and
gave me the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that broke the
power of my renunciate austerity, my forty day almond milk
fast. He assured me that I didn’t need to worry. I was going
somewhere safe. I wrote a letter that got the president shot.
Could you take me to court? You have to show up for court or
you’ll be in even more trouble than you were in the first place.
And I think I need a lawyer? There’s no court today, Miss. And
President Obama is alive and well as far as I know. In fact, the
first family just adopted a dog. Do you know what day it is? Oh
god, I thought, these questions again. But I realized I didn’t
know the answer.
Part II, Bardo of Dreams
II.III AUDIO
I grew up thinking people could fly. The night I wound up in the
hospital the evil force, disguised as the voice of my ancestors,
told me to jump out of the window. I was so blessed I could fly
it told me. In that moment I felt an invisible wall, like tender
glass, hold space between me and the dawn sky. Could the
light of my spirit, my nature of mind— could it overpower the
negative manifestations who talk to me, who speak to me in my
own voice. The answer I know now is yes but not without
cause. Not without effect. I spent forty days in the mind prison
that is Bellevue. The holy queen’s buddha nature challenged by
illusion.
Part IV, Bardo of Dying
IV.XI AUDIO
Past life lovers
Not even death can
Break our bond
But you
This
Us
Blinds me
This
Us
Passion
A prison
We’ve overstayed
Our welcome.
A slight shift
And desire
Leaves humanity in ruins.
We pay the price.
The greatness
That we once were
Becomes nothing.
Sweet bliss
Our curse
Our suffering.
Part IV, Bardo of Dying
IV.XXI AUDIO
The Willful Queen.
Kaliyuga
A material body
A lifetime wasted.
A gesture of greed.
Siddhartha
My love.
His purity
My ultimate desire
Unbearable
Past life queen to king
Siddhartha
The ruler of my world.
A love with the strength of ages
Though not strong enough for this life.
The universe is love
And yet
Karma
Cause and effect
A paradox too cruel to fathom.
Part IV, Bardo of Dying
IV.XXII AUDIO
It was moha I thought. Delusion so powerful it speaks in one’s
own voice. I wandered the city for forty-nine days. On the forty-
ninth day, as I lay dreaming, I followed the white cat of the child
me up to the roof to my liberation. The karmic jump that took
my breath away. My lungs imploding upon impact. I couldn’t fly
but my death was blameless. The most blessed Goddess
Queen, detached from the mind prison of their suffering. Dying
all the time. This is life. Perhaps my present actions will put me
back on my destined path. The next moment my next life. The
moment after that, my next death. This is my prayer as my soul
soars into clear light.
* * *