Becoming Someone Who Isn't Jill Chan (Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, 2007). 64pp RRP $18.00. 9781869420833

Nancy Loader

This is Jill Chan's second collection of poetry, her first being The Smell of Oranges, in 2003. She was born in Manila and moved to NZ in 1994. She has a degree in Chemistry and spends her time between Auckland and Manila. After an acute episode of mental illness she started writing and publishing poetry as part of her recovery process. She has been published in a number of literary journals, and is editor of the e-zine Poetry Sz which aims to demystify mental illness by publishing work from those who have experienced mental illness. This new collection of 45 poems is divided into sections, entitled 'Origin of Wakefulness', 'A Station in the Snow', 'Becoming Someone Who Isn't 'and 'Journal'.

The collection covers the relationships, emotions and thoughts of the poet expressed in a reflective way. They are personal and in that sense the feeling evoked is one of being confided in. Anger, passion and joy are not expressed explicitly. Many of the poems in the collection are marked by an underlying
thread of melancholy, resignation or acceptance. They are written in free verse with a finely edited use of words and imagery: "Dust is wakeful/like light/ pressing on the eyes" (‘Century'); "The sun now/directionless, unique" (‘Painting Without A Sunset').

Origin of Wakefulness contains 12 poems which cover the beginnings of a relationship, the hesitations and unwillingness to commit clearly expressed: "Still, we trapped/defences/like mice,/each kept address/moving" (‘All There Was'); "You hate the dark./I don't like the light./We stay, alone with
our diversions." (‘Dark/Light')

A Station In The Snow is a collection of 15 poems which continue with the unfolding and uncertainties of love, as well as poems involving other subjects: the confusion of dementia in ‘Losing His Name', and the gentle irony of the poem ‘After Having A Book Signed By One of the Poets'.

Becoming Someone Who Isn't contains 12 poems broadly about longing and separation. "I want to claim/ the brightest star./ I am weak./My eyes are mirrors/no one stops in front of." (‘Stars') In ‘Birth' Chan covers the story of her birth and her progress onwards:

I am slowly moving away
from my birth
toward another birth.
That of a wind carefully shhhhing the leaves
off the ground.

Journal has a different format, although she writes in the same style. It consists of short prose in which the poet asks questions of herself and others and reflects on her answers: "I shall find the answers hooking hands, playing with the familiarity of lying together. Which? To each?" (‘Antecedent')
Ultimately, in ‘All Things Are As They Are' the final piece, she appears to come to a place of acceptance and self-knowledge:

I am still behind the eyes of everyone I don't know. They harvest the best light. I locate it, sure as a follower is sure of
being misled/mislaid.

Chan uses words and images in a complex way and her internal ‘voice' comes straight off the page. Her poems have a mystical quality. Like thoughts, many of the poems are left open-ended and can appear obscure. However, this allows the reader to spend time enjoying both the lyricism and the gift of
individual interpretation: "I hollow out my fist,/impossible as stone/never turning,/given to drowning/blind." (‘Continental') These poems reveal more the more they are studied and in this way they stay fresh.

Chan will be the editor of a new literary e-zine called Numinous : Spiritual Poetry, a bi-annual magazine which she plans to launch in June 2008.

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