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A review by foggy_rosamund
Loop of Jade by Sarah Howe
5.0
An expansive, imaginative and deeply felt collection, Loop of Jade uses a wide lens to look at colonialism, cultural heritage, family relationships, and life in a modern metropolis. The collection begins with a quote from Jorge Luis Borges, in which he itemises a list of the divisions of animals in a certain Chinese encyclopaedia. These categories include "sucking pigs" and "stray dogs", but also much less concrete divisions, such as "drawn with a very fine camel-hair brush" or "frenzied". Howe uses these divisions as starting points for poems that are interspersed throughout the collection. This long sequence uses the absurdism of Borges' quote to capture snapshots from Chinese myth and history, as well as relationships with the self and family. They create moments of magic and surprise within the collection.
Loop of Jade contains a number of long poems about Howe's mother growing up in Hong Kong, being sent to boarding school, and having to fend for herself from a young age. These poems are particularly powerful, capturing the mother's sense of dislocation, the realities of living in a brutal school, and the tenderness the daughter feels towards the mother. Howe's language is rich with detail and empathy, but also cuts to the quick, such as describing her mother's scalp, "the candied rose-petal patches" because she was made to "wash her hair with a green detergent meant for scouring floors".
There are also many beautiful, finely-wrought poems that capture the mood of a place or city, such as The Walled Garden, which describes children leaving a school at dusk, and captures a tenderness as well as a sense of loss,
It is already dark, or darkening –
that sky above the dimming terraced rows
goes far beyond a child’s imagining.
I tread along the backstreet where the cabs
cut through behind the luminous science labs –
their sills of spider plants in yoghurt pots
among the outsize glassware cylinders
like pygmies contemplating monoliths.
When this collection first appeared in 2015, I read parts of it, but it didn't capture my attention. Now, I hugely appreciate Howe's complex approach, and the ways in which she reflects on trauma, giving it space and compassion. This collection is lively and engaging, and also deeply moving: a wonderful achievement.
Loop of Jade contains a number of long poems about Howe's mother growing up in Hong Kong, being sent to boarding school, and having to fend for herself from a young age. These poems are particularly powerful, capturing the mother's sense of dislocation, the realities of living in a brutal school, and the tenderness the daughter feels towards the mother. Howe's language is rich with detail and empathy, but also cuts to the quick, such as describing her mother's scalp, "the candied rose-petal patches" because she was made to "wash her hair with a green detergent meant for scouring floors".
There are also many beautiful, finely-wrought poems that capture the mood of a place or city, such as The Walled Garden, which describes children leaving a school at dusk, and captures a tenderness as well as a sense of loss,
It is already dark, or darkening –
that sky above the dimming terraced rows
goes far beyond a child’s imagining.
I tread along the backstreet where the cabs
cut through behind the luminous science labs –
their sills of spider plants in yoghurt pots
among the outsize glassware cylinders
like pygmies contemplating monoliths.
When this collection first appeared in 2015, I read parts of it, but it didn't capture my attention. Now, I hugely appreciate Howe's complex approach, and the ways in which she reflects on trauma, giving it space and compassion. This collection is lively and engaging, and also deeply moving: a wonderful achievement.