And Other Rivers

by Jing-Jing Lee

In And Other Rivers, lives are carved open from tip to tail and laid out for display. A child watches her father perform a lunar new year ritual. First-generation migrants swim for shore. A woman dives into fast flowing water. This collection of poetry is about fluid longings, and about the searches and meanderings one embarks on to fulfil those longings. And Other Rivers starts close to home, winds its way across foreign landscapes, and finds its way back again.

“Entering the world of And Other Rivers is like a opening a door on a parallel landscape where all the insidious methods of love and violence flower with a strange, dangerous beauty. Lee’s vivid and searching poetics, fluid and sure-footed, mark her out as a poet of delicate and distinctive authority.”

— Jane Draycott, Author of Pearl

Genres: Poetry, Asian Literature

52 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2015

About the author

Jing-Jing Lee is the author of HOW WE DISAPPEARED (Oneworld and Hanover Square Press, May 2019). Born and raised in Singapore, she graduated from Oxford’s Creative Writing Master’s in 2011 and has since seen her poetry and short stories published in various journals and anthologies. Lee's novella, If I Could Tell You, was published by Marshall Cavendish in 2013 and her debut poetry collection, And Other Rivers, was published by Math Paper Press in 2015.

Reviews

[CuriousBookReviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Curiosity level: Cultural explorer mode

"Hear the difference between
Shut up, and
Shut up, lah.
The last word hiding in it the curve of a smile,
making a blow land light as a kiss." - p.41 ("Afterword")

A beautiful collection of elegant, melancholic memories, observations that hug the comfort of the past, watery elements (nature and mostly rivers), people, and tradition.

I enjoyed the slowing down of time as I munched each poem. In "After Swim", we observe the division of people, of races, after the immigration to early Singapore. "The River Alpheus" seems to be about the obscure death of a brother, and his possible reincarnation... (I could be wrong). In "Huang He", the narrator mirrors the traditions of the yellow river to her own life. Each poem has a cultural richness and cryptic depth.

I think the poems have a dimension which is difficult to enter into without an amount of mulling over. Yet, this exercise adds the revelatory oomph that we would otherwise miss. I particularly enjoyed her "Afterword" tongue-in-cheek-but-true poem.

[Elizabeth H.]

Really, really enjoyed this. Very heartfelt, the poems told stories that (i) captivated me (ii) I felt I was a part of. Glad I picked this book up :-) Also the cover is really pretty!!

[SSC · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lovely collection of poems, quiet poems, a number set in the everyday life of a Singaporean, others with a historical or geopolitical reflection but all personal.

[Guan You · Rating 2 out of 5]

At best, very vivid descriptions; would have been a better read if it was in prose.

[Lauren Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hardly a "poet with a... truly original voice" as the dust jacket claims, but Lee does include an occasionally lovely turn-of-phrase in her humble-brag collection of vignettes.