Rain in Plural by Fiona Sze-Lorrain (USA: Princeton University Press, 2020) Reviewed by Lara Norgaard Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s much-awaited fourth poetry collection, Rain in Plural, is a polyphonic gathering of wide-ranging themes. It is tempting to pull out one thread from the collection and peel back layers of meaning to display the sense of Sze-Lorrain’s poetry. But the collection—and one poem in particular—gives pause to any critic attempting the difficult task of reviewing the poet’s work: To Critics who dig up a word or a clause from its grave expose its antipodal limbs, pick at the bones (th ..read more

To commemorate the 35th anniversary of Operation Spectrum, the PAP government's detention without trial of a group of social activists for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the state, we are pleased and honored to reprint three poems by former detainee and lawyer Teo Soh Lung, who wrote and drew while imprisoned in order to keep sane. The poems first appeared in Teo's book Creatures Big and Small: Poems and Drawings from Behind the Blue Gate (Singapore: Function 8 Ltd, 2018), with a preface by historian Michael Barr and an introduction by the author, both of which are also reproduced below. Po ..read more

Review of The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki (USA: Viking, 2021) By Rebekah Lim Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness begins with an ending. Specifically, the end of Kenji Oh’s life and the relationships he shared with his wife Annabelle and son Benjamin, addressed as Benny in the novel. It is abrupt and uncalled for, a loss that happens all too soon. To rub salt into the wound, Kenji dies through almost laughable circumstances; after he passes out from getting high, a truck carrying live chickens runs over him in a back alley. What is left in the wake of his beloved father’s d ..read more

Review of Focal Point by Jenny Qi (USA: Steel Toe Books, 2021) By Tricia Tan Jenny Qi's masterful debut collection Focal Point wrenches us from the orbit of the ordinary into the fissures of the poet’s grief. Losing her mother to cancer at the tender age of 19 must have been shattering. Yet Qi has created something startlingly beautiful in the wake of ashes: this collection has been 10 years in the making. As she shared in a recent interview with Singapore Unbound, "remembering was too painful ... so I put those painful, beautiful memories to paper." Deservingly, her collection received the 20 ..read more

"Art Is +" is an attempt to view art through the eyes of artists and writers themselves. In wide-ranging interviews with vital new artists and writers from both Asia and the USA, the series ushers these voices to the forefront, contextualizing their work with the experiences, processes, and motivations that are unique to each individual artist. "Art Is +" encourages viewers and readers to appreciate art as the multitude of ways in which artists and writers continually engage with our world and the variety of spaces they occupy in it. Read our interviews with Symin Adive, Geraldine Kang, Paula ..read more

Review of Han Vanderhart’s What Pecan Light (USA: Bull City Press, 2021) By Jennifer Anne Champion What can a woman from a tropical modern city-state make of a collection of poetry about Louisiana farm life? The majority of Singapore’s inhabitants are severely distanced from agriculture beyond eating it, let alone the activities, histories, and cultures of farms halfway across the world. And yet we are not entirely unfamiliar with the baggage and pain derived from the intersection of race and labor. Approaching the work of Han Vanderhart, in particular their first full collection, What Pecan L ..read more

“Lunch Break” is a poetry column appearing every fourth Friday of the month. Look for insightful appreciations of contemporary poems from around the world. This month, columnist Lim Xin Hwee examines the ramifying ironies in “Singapore Pastoral” by Daryl Lim Wei Jie. Sign up for notifications here. Singapore Pastoral By Daryl Lim Wei Jie The crows are fresh with the scent of our gloriously burnt dead Around the corner the boys rehearse the conquest of our regional partners The rumour is it’s earmarked for a spaceport, or sex tourism, despite the legions of mosquitoes World wars are ways to a ..read more

Review of Ricky Ray’s Quiet, Grit, Glory (Broken Sleep Books, 2020) By Stephanie Chan Would you believe me if I told you that I found it incredibly difficult to write this review? Every time I finished reading Ricky Ray’s chapbook, Quiet, Grit and Glory, every time I came back to it, all I wanted to do was to hold my dog, take her outside for a walk, leaving my phone at home, put my nose to the earth, and roll in the grass with her, just to see what I might find. Quiet, Grit, Glory is the poet Ricky Ray’s second publication, following his full-length collection Fealty (Diode Books, 2019). The ..read more

Review of Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties (USA: Ecco, 2021) By Aileen Liang Afterparties is the late Cambodian-American writer Anthony Veasna So’s debut, a story collection spotlighting the Cambodian immigrant community in the valleys of California. Drawing from his own experiences growing up in Stockton as a son to immigrant Khmer parents, So brings to life a diverse cast of characters of different generations of Cambodians: a provision shop owner’s son doubling as a badminton coach, a nouveau riche stingy pou (Khmer for ‘uncle’), a young nurse who lives with the ghost of her aunt, twin Stan ..read more

Review of Barrett Swanson’s Lost in Summerland (USA: Counterpoint, 2021) by Audrey Teong I am drawn to the cover of Lost in Summerland. The crystalline blue sky and cotton-white clouds remind me of a cartoon afternoon, like the pictures I might have painted as a child. As a reader I wonder where, and what, “Summerland” is and how we have become lost in it. Upon a closer look at the cover, however, I discover cracks in this innocent image. “Summerland” is the state of an eternal summer, evoking nostalgia and idyll, an image that Barrett Swanson is on a quest to break in this debut collection of ..read more