Pebble Swing

In her bittersweet and sensuous debut, Chinese Canadian poet Wang contemplates the wonder of the natural world, the burden of cultural expectations, the role of collective memory, and identity. She uses a variety of forms, including the ghazal and anti-ghazal ("Thirteen Ghazals and Anti-Ghazals after Phyllis Webb") to organize digestible, understated, and deeply felt poems. Here, nature serves as a symbol for belonging. When asked where she is from, she responds to herself, "I am of this earth," then aloud with glorious snark, "My mother's womb." Wang writes of the physical world as a guide to the spiritual, aiming for the permeability and fortitude of water, "the kind that can be reached into, and still flow." She recounts the disapproval of her literary aspirations, the weight of both silence and staunch pragmatism, and the disillusionment she experienced in both China and Canada. Faced with familial secrecy, she turns to memory as an act of reverence and empathy: "my father's shame// became my obsession// what he refused to talk about/ lined my bookshelves." Wang offers a persuasive glimpse at how history can illuminate the future. (Apr.)