Clay Eaters
by Gregory Kan
Clay Eaters covers a lot of spaces and time: being at home both now and then, military service, life with a cat, New Zealand, Singapore just for starters. The travels in time and space are all covered with equal equanimity, matter-of-fact relaxed language that requires no uncomfortable decision on the part of the reader about whether or not to keep going.
The poems are comfortable to read, so much so that you don’t realise how much information and what a range of casual comment you are absorbing – whether it’s about Uncle Chee Boon, Gilgamesh, Kan’s birth family, Madam Dai, T, Gregory Kan himself or the full cast. The action moves back and forth, from the barren red clay patches of Singapore to the ‘things in the trees’ lying in wait in all sorts of islands.
Home one day
Sitting on the steps
Familiar, unfamiliar
The steps wider than I remembered
And the things in each room, further apart
I had a shower
And became several outlines of myself
I just wanted to stay still
For a long time (p 89)
One reason the collection reads so well is its design and layout, always just as much part of a book as its words, but especially noticeable in this book. There are a couple of pages of three-columned lists: these remind us that any work is composed of discrete blobs of information (atoms, if you want to be fussy). But most entries are single pages, apparently randomly presented either as a poetry-shaped item (left justified, double-spaced, each line punctuated only with an initial cap) or a prose-shaped item (centred, fully justified, 1.5 spaced, some end punctuation). Some items conspicuously include a few italics or full caps. (Both the items quoted in this review are set in the poetry-shaped style.)
There are no titles to push us into a corner, and the language is descriptive and non-confrontational; the only direct address is in the dozen items specifically addressing the cat. Other than hints from the layout, there’s no nagging at the reader to think ‘prose’ or ‘poetry’ – the individual items drift along en masse, each equally important.
I think part of me felt at home there
I think part of my unease
Was that I felt at home there
Like I could be just another ghost there
Floating among the branches (p 81)
The overall feeling is that time is having a play with us – and this feels total, casual and appropriate. Time can do that to you, even though we don’t always notice; this collection of poems gives us the luxury of a huge variety of incidents and places combined with an overall feeling of no rush, no hassle, no sweat – just sit back and remember.
by Gregory Kan
Clay Eaters covers a lot of spaces and time: being at home both now and then, military service, life with a cat, New Zealand, Singapore just for starters. The travels in time and space are all covered with equal equanimity, matter-of-fact relaxed language that requires no uncomfortable decision on the part of the reader about whether or not to keep going.
The poems are comfortable to read, so much so that you don’t realise how much information and what a range of casual comment you are absorbing – whether it’s about Uncle Chee Boon, Gilgamesh, Kan’s birth family, Madam Dai, T, Gregory Kan himself or the full cast. The action moves back and forth, from the barren red clay patches of Singapore to the ‘things in the trees’ lying in wait in all sorts of islands.
Home one day
Sitting on the steps
Familiar, unfamiliar
The steps wider than I remembered
And the things in each room, further apart
I had a shower
And became several outlines of myself
I just wanted to stay still
For a long time (p 89)
One reason the collection reads so well is its design and layout, always just as much part of a book as its words, but especially noticeable in this book. There are a couple of pages of three-columned lists: these remind us that any work is composed of discrete blobs of information (atoms, if you want to be fussy). But most entries are single pages, apparently randomly presented either as a poetry-shaped item (left justified, double-spaced, each line punctuated only with an initial cap) or a prose-shaped item (centred, fully justified, 1.5 spaced, some end punctuation). Some items conspicuously include a few italics or full caps. (Both the items quoted in this review are set in the poetry-shaped style.)
There are no titles to push us into a corner, and the language is descriptive and non-confrontational; the only direct address is in the dozen items specifically addressing the cat. Other than hints from the layout, there’s no nagging at the reader to think ‘prose’ or ‘poetry’ – the individual items drift along en masse, each equally important.
I think part of me felt at home there
I think part of my unease
Was that I felt at home there
Like I could be just another ghost there
Floating among the branches (p 81)
The overall feeling is that time is having a play with us – and this feels total, casual and appropriate. Time can do that to you, even though we don’t always notice; this collection of poems gives us the luxury of a huge variety of incidents and places combined with an overall feeling of no rush, no hassle, no sweat – just sit back and remember.
Review by Mary Cresswell
Title: Clay Eaters
Author: Gregory Kan
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 9781776711536
RRP: $29.99
Available: bookshops
Author: Gregory Kan
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 9781776711536
RRP: $29.99
Available: bookshops
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