Shastra Deo reviews 'blur by the' by Cham Zhi Yi for Overland
Shastra Deo has written an experimental review of blur by the, by Cham Zhi Yi. Read the full review over at Overland Literary Journal.
Here’s a little excerpt:
Entry for food, thought, the making of bonds between family and loved ones. Entry for a McDonald’s drive-thru lane. Exit of abject, language—‘nothing / is as sensual as before / it’s been englished’, says the speaker of colonisation 2 ways. These mouths speak their way between duality and instability: language and language. These poems sit in the messy in-between: poised before ripeness turns to rot and food turns to fuel, holding longing by its stem, bleeding languages into one another. ‘The two languages of care in which I am confidently proficient,’ says Zhi during an interview with Dan Hogan, ‘are poems, and eternally, food.’ And both poetry and food happen, truly, in the mouth.