Declan Fry reviews Cham Zhi Yi's debut poetry collection for Cordite
Declan Fry has written a comprehensive review of blur by the, by Cham Zhi Yi. Read the full review over at Cordite Poetry Review.
Here’s an excerpt:
Like Goytisolo, Cham employs a combination of languages and styles, raising questions about who speaks and who is spoken to. They question what it means to write your identity when others have already presumed to try to write it for you (even in a reductive and brutally essentialised form). For writers who have not traditionally been included in the Western canon, the problem is one of narrativisation and self-recognition; of always having to wonder whether you are the protagonist of your story, or simply writing against a colonial frame.