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A review by mustardseed
Professions by Amanda Chong
4.0
a touching collection of poems with what i'd consider a rather particular style (i can't verbalise it but it feels distinct to me). i enjoyed the idea of the interspersion of poems written from different professions (extended metaphor lesgo), though my favourite poems were mostly outside of these. certainly i think the concepts behind a lot of poems were very interesting (from the perspective of a girl who died in an accident to a person on a death row). she also captures certain feelings, to varying levels of success. as always, what i love about singlit is how it turns the everyday familiar, prosaic, into poetry (in this case, literally).
some favourites:
- The way only recent strangers do: "studied sag of indifference / in shoulders, half-smile, again I am learning to / still my hands from reaching the way only recent strangers do."
- Domestic Premonition
- Notes from a Colonist, 2065: vv interesting concept, exploring colonialism... from the future - a future that is a new past
- The Illusionist: "Tonight, brace yourself / for my final vanishing trick: / Half of you, left tuxedoed on stage. / Other half was always inside my head."
- Museum of Aborted Romance: really captures that "almost" feeling
- Monsoon Girls: the poet and i went to the same girls' secondary school and this transports me to a different time, so recent and yet strangely far away
- Yearbook: an ode to her mother, and housewives
- Bukit Brown: "When will we tire of this constant / reaching in the dark? Never certain / of what we want, but wanting it to be there."
- Mute Swans: love the extended metaphor and imagery
some favourites:
- The way only recent strangers do: "studied sag of indifference / in shoulders, half-smile, again I am learning to / still my hands from reaching the way only recent strangers do."
- Domestic Premonition
- Notes from a Colonist, 2065: vv interesting concept, exploring colonialism... from the future - a future that is a new past
- The Illusionist: "Tonight, brace yourself / for my final vanishing trick: / Half of you, left tuxedoed on stage. / Other half was always inside my head."
- Museum of Aborted Romance: really captures that "almost" feeling
- Monsoon Girls: the poet and i went to the same girls' secondary school and this transports me to a different time, so recent and yet strangely far away
- Yearbook: an ode to her mother, and housewives
- Bukit Brown: "When will we tire of this constant / reaching in the dark? Never certain / of what we want, but wanting it to be there."
- Mute Swans: love the extended metaphor and imagery