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Slant
by Andy Quan
Nightwood
Editions, 2001
Reviewed by Alex Boyd
The poems in Slant, by Andy Quan, make occasional references to race, such as in "Mr. Wong’s Children," which concludes:
though speaking
with no accent
was as easy
as water the eyes
were a little
harder to hide
But the poems in Slant cover such a diverse range of topics, and all with enough careful crafting, empathy and expressive language, that it becomes impossible to close the book believing in one interpretation of the title. This is not meant as a criticism. In fact, one of the joys of reading the book is that so much falls out of it. Quan is Vancouver born of Chinese descent, but explores gay sexuality and has also clearly done a great deal of travelling, firing off poems from Berlin or London with poetic observations that can’t help but be cultural explorations as well.
Like all good poets, Quan can photograph a moment using words. In the poem "First Sun," (set in Savona, Italy) he greets the sun after "winter travels" and takes it in "like a pop star preening on a balcony / that juts out like a proud chin." As a careful writer, Quan ensures that even his description of the balcony matches his mood, and we are immediately allowed to step into how he felt at that moment. He continues to carefully control the perspective of the reader, observing next that "young men on mopeds" down below "bob" like "human buoys." In "The Old Woman of Seville" we find the women are draped in polyester flowers "as bright as language."
Not every image in the book works perfectly. In the last example, I can’t help but think that while Quan might use bright language in his poetry, language is simply a tool for most people. In the poem "Sun Bathing," he describes breasts as "fully developed double summits," an image more amusing than effective. It strikes me as unoriginal and awkward enough that even something like "large breasts" might have been better. Titles like "Letters Backwards in Time" tell me that he can do much better than "Gym Boy," though it is only his own talent that gives him away. At times, simple lack of punctuation forced one line to bleed into another, so that it wasn’t clear to me where one thought or image began and another ended. This is not a tremendous problem, but it does mean the poem jams and I have to go back and reread a few lines to be sure I understand it.
Are these minor quibbles? Yes, they are. Quan is a talented writer who provides many worthwhile moments in his book. Have a look at these descriptive lines from "The Last Visit," how he makes the eye of the reader move from one detail to another and add them up:
The heat
rising from narrow
Spanish walkways
a white pigeon
tucked into the window-frame
a bright fallen orange
on the cobblestone.
He allows the reader to see through his tangible description, as though he had painted it rather than spoken about it. The poem "Nails," is literally about him cutting his nails, something I’d normally call a worrisome topic for poetry, but have a look:
Each of my new fingertips
the shape of a harbour
or a just-opened tulip
or my round face.
The mention of a harbour (which is constructed for something else) allows for a subtle way to include others, even in his privacy. What would be pure narcissism in the hands of a less empathetic poet is another worthwhile moment here, and it is because of this compassion, craft and talent that I can recommend the poetry of Andy Quan without hesitation.
Alex Boyd is a Toronto writer with samples of poems, essays and fiction online at
alexboyd.com.
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