Swallowing Clouds: An Anthology of Chinese-Canadian Poetry

by Andy Quan (Co-Editor), Jim Wong-Chu (Editor)

Work by writers of Chinese-Canadian heritage have achieved international success: this includes books by Wayson Choy, SKY Lee, and Denise Chong, as well as the acclaimed anthology of Chinese-Canadian fiction, "Many Mouthed Birds." "Swallowing Clouds" collects the work of some of the most vibrant and exciting Chinese-Canadian poets working today, being the first poetic anthology ever published in book form. The collection evokes the spirit and sentiment of the Chinese-Canadian community, representing a diversity of language and style that speak to issues of ethnicity and culture while forging new and exciting paths of their own. "Swallowing Clouds" includes poems by a number of well-known writers as well as fresh new poetic voices, forming an eloquent and fiery portrait of the Chinese-Canadian experience. CONTRIBUTORS: Marisa AnLin Alps, Louise Bak, Lien Chao, Ritz Chow, Glenn Deer, Sean Gunn, Jamila Ismail, Gaik Cheng Khoo, Lydia Kwa, Larissa Lai, Laiwan, Fiona Lam, Jen Lam, Evelyn Lau, Pei Hsien Lim, P.K. Leung, Andy Quan, Goh Poh Seng, Thuong Vuong-Riddick, Fred Wah, Rita Wong, Jim Wong-Chu, Kam Sein Yee, Paul Yee.

Genres: Poetry

270 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1999

About the author

Andy Quan is the author of four books, one of short fiction, Calendar Boy, two of poetry, Slant and Bowling Pin Fire, and one of gay erotica, Six Positions. He was the co-editor of Swallowing Clouds, an Anthology of Chinese Canadian Poetry. His work has appeared in a broad range of anthologies, magazines and literary reviews in Australia, Canada, and elsewhere. His work often deals with the themes of identity, community, and culture.

Born in Vancouver of Cantonese origin, Andy has lived in Toronto, Brussels, and London before settling in Sydney, Australia. A singer and songwriter, he has also self-produced tapes and CDs.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology includes poems by Paul Yee, Rita Wong, Louise Bak, Goh Poh Seng, Marisa Anlin Alps, Sean Gunn, Jamila Ismail, Lydia Kwa, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Evelyn Lau, Kam Sein Yee, Larissa Lai, Laiwan, Leung Ping-Kwan, Lien Chao, Gaik Cheng Khoo, Thuong Vuong-Riddick, Glenn Deer, Andy Quan, Ritz Chow, Pei Hsien Lim, Jen Lam, Fred Wah, Paul Ching Lee, and Jim Wong-Chu.

Paul Yee...

At the Chinatown stop
the bus is invaded
seven chattering women
loud in Toisanese
laughing and leering.

I shut my eyes
and feign a sleep.

Later
one eye peeks open
there's a white lady
across from me
legs clenched in silence
under a leather armour.
Small eyes glare
like cheap earrings.

If she feels threatened
I'd join her army.
I was a deserter
from long before.

- Hastings Express, 10pm, pg. 14

Sean Gunn...

in the world today
Chinese
are people
who live in China

on the local scene
Chinese
are adjectives
that modify people

- Orientation #1, pg. 75

Lydia Kwa...

the left hand wants to write a feeling
of crushed, and going against

wants to unfurl
large as the voice singing

murmurs to rhythms of the heart
hesitates at the sound of crying

- excerpt from Suite of Hands, pg. 88

Fiona Tinwei Lam...

Crows hop
staccato over the dead,
a sprinkling of commas.

Their heads bob.
Beaks pluck
the remnants of ritual:
stubs of incense,
rice lumps,
an orange.

Over my father's grave,
I listen, rapt,
for the light lift of their wings.

- Cemetery on Boxing Day, pg. 101

Evelyn Lau...

coming home, you counted one person dead
for every year you were away in Singapore
eating rice and vegetables, standing by the side of the road
where the thinness of the people swelled to fill the streets
under a hood of heat.
you returned with a camera and a pair of socks slowly stained
the colour of your shoes, expecting nothing,
not the rain that lay like glass outside the motel window,
or the cold through your cotton shirt. seeing nothing
but one friend hanging by a leash from the bridge,
puffy as a purple fig.
listen, you said in the parking lot outside,
the silence, listen to it, and I saw it cut you
with its high horrible delicacy, its vicious thinness,
so much silence to chatter you could hardly stand it.
so this is my country, you said, and your eyes pulled tight
and your laughter forced sound after sound in the air.

- Coming Home, pg. 110

Larissa Lai...

embryonic bird
sleeps in its
translucent sac
dreaming its yolk
yellow origins the future
unfolding and spread of
destiny

a bird cannot speak
of what a bird does not yet know
when its foot bones
gelatinous soft
harden after hatching
it leaves dance tracks
in the sand

- amnion, pg. 134

Thuong Vuong-Riddick...

My beloved rose early in the morning,
started the motor in darkness,
devoured towns and cities
on roads full of traffic.
He rolled down the valleys,
climbed plateaus
where the water is blue and clear.
He chose mountainous roads.
All day long
nothing frightened him.

Because he was born in a free country
space belonged to him.

- Across the Country, pg. 195

Ritz Chow...

over dinner once again
our eyes meet as mouths
to rice & oolong tea
& i want to say
ba'ba father
and show you my hands
what i am able to do
and what i won't
how i will never
give a bride's toast
at a chinese wedding banquet
like the ones you attend
in chinatown now
and again as children
of friends marry
how i will not buy
a house a store a car
how you must stop
realize i am everything
you've not heard of
from friends
from what immigrants
want for their children
in a new country

- family/life, pg. 223

Fred Wah...

the steps
for flavour

(a little) sleight of tongue
impossibly meant itself

puente questo
the "you" that shadows every cloud

but it is possible
nothing at all happens

is it not it
the storm the mind

some trill remembered
crests the labial beach

no hay paso

- ArtKnot Forty Nine, pg. 255

Paul Ching Lee...

The light bows to the hour:
Blue marrow, blue air.

Remnant of cirrus.
A smudge of evening star begins to rise.

To the west, mountains,
Island in the cool bifold of water.

Almost now, you hear the maples,
Photoelectric,
Leaves in the wholeness of light
Massing night.

- Beach Avenue, pg. 266

[Paulo Costa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swallowing Clouds

An Anthology of Chinese-Canadian Poetry

edited by Andy Quan and Jim Wong-Chu

Arsenal Pulp Press 99

reviewed by paulo da costa

Louise Bak, Fred Wah, Evelyn Lau, Larissa Lai and Rita Wong, will be names the Calgary reader will recognize. They either live or grew up in Calgary, have been guests of WordFest or the Markin-Flannigan Writer-in-Residence Program and, conceivably, have seen Chinook clouds happily swallowing a cold prairie day.

Of the writers featured in this anthology, and unfamiliar to me, the work of Laiwan was particularly interesting. In recent years Laiwan has been searching and researching the effects of technology on consciousness and perception. Swallowing Clouds profiles the second installment of "Notes towards a body", which continues Laiwan's exploration into the erasure of the "body" of race, class, gender, and sexuality along with cultural and geographical contexts within technological systems.

"i am remembering the time i was not yet born/when there was no such thing as time/and no such thing as remembering/no, i am wrong/i remember, but not through memory/(...)/i, waiting to be born become remembered solely by a frozen image/of a frozen time/of the not yet born/of the still being born/of the still being and the still born/of a still life in a portrait/longing/ for a body

Swallowing Clouds' ethnic focus, provides a bridge to the poetics of a culture as varied and as challenging to define - in its differences - as one seeking to define Canadian/ness. English becomes their hyphenated bridge to cross such distinct shores. In the river below flows the poetry. Our/their common language.

[Andy Quan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had great fun co-editing this collection - and mainly due to the poets included. It's a wide range of diverse voices from so many different types of Chinese backgrounds, to families long in Canada to more recent immigrants. What links them together is talent. These poets are really amazing. I'd recommend you checking it out. More information and reviews at my website: http://andyquan.com/?page_id=171