Other Things and Other Poems by Alvin Pang

Other Things and Other Poems Reviews

• 
  Yong Xiang

  i enjoyed this a lot! especially the poems selected from City of Rain, which i'll definitely want to pick up. the new poems are a bit more difficult (for me) to understand.
  
  favourite:
  Psalm of Birds and Birthdays
  
  You hold a small bird to your breast.
  You who have mothered and know how
  it is to nurse a second fluttering heart,
  to let your body make space for another
  as if it were the most natural thing
  
  now shape your sure hand lightly into wing;
  a gesture of compassion, like prayer, as free
  of hesitant desire as the hatchling knows of fear
  and what must surely come, one cloudless day
  in unmistaken whispers. This is Hope:
  
  the clear eye fixed beyond the narrow frame,
  the fragile talon poised on no more firm foundation
  than this flesh, the ruffled down sufficient and at trust.
  I, a weak father, lack the language and the innocence
  to call down angels. Once I found a fallen nestling
  
  whose parents’ unschooled artistry did not after all
  withstand the previous evening’s storm. Blind,
  leathery and clawing, ants come already to plunder,
  I scooped it (not untenderly) to shade, covered
  it with leaves. Was the decent thing to have kept vigil
  
  or leave quietly?  My daughter, 4, knows that goldfish
  go to heaven when they go, but more to the point,
  that they don’t come back. She leans on my arm, asks
  me never to die, her small heart strong enough to love
  and not tire. What do we do to earn our time on earth?
• 
  Jake

  I really like this collection. Pang has put together a lovely and "tight" set of poems here. While I am not the type to fall quickly for free verse of little constraint, Pang is so adept here at carving out space in his poetry that I can't help but enjoy these pieces.
  
  Three stars only for lack of lustre, but I'm a pathetic sucker for novelty in poetry so in all honesty my judgment is a bit unfair.
  
  [Review #1 - 29/06/18.]