Review of "Tilting Our Plates To Catch The Light"

By Stephanie Yap, The Sunday Times, Jan. 13 2008

If you were wondering: Yes, the plates in the title are the kind you eat from. The image is taken from one of the poems in this collection, in which a couple, both stricken with Aids, carry on with their daily lives, including the washing of dishes, "without grief, but also / without hope."

As for the collection, it serves up three narrative strands which, in their apparent unconnectedness, might lead one to wonder at first glance if the poet is biting off more than he can chew.

One describes the lives of the Hindu god Shiva and his lover Mohini, the female incarnation of the god Vishnu. Another draws from the poet's classical music background, with love poems which bear Italian musical terms as titles. A third is told from the perspective of a couple coping with illness and impending death.

But in what is his most polished collection thus far, Wong manages to interweave and merge the three strands into a luminous symphony, best appreciated when read straight through in one sitting, as per concert hall conditions.

His lyricism is in full bloom here, evoking that dreamy, Wong Kar Wai feel previous reviewers have remarked upon.

Take his description of a couple dealing with death: "But when they catch him asleep, they touch as / quietly as they can, forgetting, for a moment, / that he is lying there between them, / dreaming of freezing deserts and majestic ruins / overrun with weeds and mute with memory."

But it's not all exquisite imagery and profundity. What buoys this collection is its sense of loving irreverence, like the gentle humour with which the poet mixes the sacred and the quotidian: "Shiva / enters the garden / like a man / coming home / to his wife, loosening / the tie of his divinity, / shaking the clouds / from his feet".

Or, in a tribute to booty-shaking goddesses both immortal and mortal: "I was Mohini, vibrating / madly, a wilder / Shakira."

As the collection explores emotional attachments and loss, the notion of empty instruments of nourishment as a means to reflect more intangible warmth takes on poignancy.

But, ultimately, this poetry collection burns strongly with its own inherent energy, celebrating love in a generous, timeless way: "Even with one of us gone, would not the mind / of the other reveal its universe, its constellation / of memories like a field of flickering candles / the same face at the centre of every flame?"