Description
Trade Review"Shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, Arrowsmith Press"
"A splendid follow-up to the
LJ best-booked
The Ruined Elegance with broader appeal." * Library Journal, starred review *
"Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s
fourth book of original poems,
Rain in Plural . . . uses language to uncover questions of citizenship, memory, and image. We love Sze-Lorrain’s lush, musical sensibilities. . . . If you’ve enjoyed her work in the past, you’re sure to enjoy
Rain in Plural, too!" * Lantern Review *
"The poetry in her newest collection,
Rain in Plural, is neither a mélange nor a mosaic of cultural, intellectual and linguistic referents, but a deeply intertwined layering . . . Sze-Lorrain seems at home and a visitor everywhere, connecting dots across cultures and continents, dipping into languages and cuisines. If there is a globalized future for English-language literature, this is perhaps an early glance at it."
---Asian Review of Books, Peter Gordon"Provocative . . . lyrical. . . . These lovely poems slide between equally compelling realities that don’t seem to belong together but ultimately unify and bring sense, compassion, and beauty."
---Kyle Torke, Colorado Review"The collection reveals the inner-life of a truly remarkable poet. Radiantly intelligent, Sze-Lorrain’s work is as musically intoxicating as the zheng she plays with precision . . .
Rain in Plural is a collection of poetry deserving of multiple reads in the quietude of soft light over one’s left shoulder."
---Michael Escoubas, Quill & Parchment"
Rain in Plural is a collection that quietly insists on your attention."
---Lisa Higgs, The Adroit Journal"There is something for every reader in
Rain in Plural . . .
Rain in Plural is an invitation to a myriad of entanglements with the inner life, and what grows from the seeds planted there."
---Hannah VanderHart, EcoTheo Review"
Rain in Plural is a lush and intimate study of the porous boundaries of personal life. Inflected with quietude and hardened by rigorous examination, Sze-Lorrain’s careful eye ranges over landscapes both within and outside the self, mining language for new entry points." * Yaddo News *
"Fiona Sze-Lorrain's much-awaited fourth poetry collection,
Rain in Plural, is a polyphonic gathering of wide-ranging themes. . . . Sze-Lorrain’s work allows us to grasp, for a moment, the points of contact that translation perpetually seeks. Therein lies the philosophical importance of
Rain in Plural: eschewing equivalence, Sze-Lorrain crafts a poetics of border spaces and contact zones."
---Lara Norgaard, Singapore Unbound"Such unexpected juxtapositions lend the collection a quirky vividness. Though consecutive lines and stanzas often touch on drastically different subjects, the poems still offer a sense of wholeness. . . . Regardless of her subject, Sze-Lorrain manages to be inventive and original without sacrificing authenticity and musical balance."
---Maggie Wang, Harvard Review"The poems in this very good collection, even those that are slight on the page, have an epic, Yeatsian sweep to them, a grandeur of statement found in a lightness of touch."
---Dominic Leonard, Poetry London
