Marking the Season
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Last Monday I finally met a Singaporean author whom I've admired for some time. Visiting from London, she is here for a month to work in her company's NYC office. At Grand Central Oyster Bar, we had a dozen oysters each. They all had beautiful names that reminded us of where they came from. The only name I remember now is Wellfleet Massachusetts, because of the Elizabeth Bishop poem. My dining companion expressed relief at the lightness of our repast, having been troubled by the size of American portions.
She loves living in London as much as I do living in New York. A reason? The seasons. This is not the shutter happiness of tourists, nor the novelty of snowfall to the tropical student. We have both lived in temperate countries for years, in fact, in each other's country, if the possessive is apt here for a pair of immigrants. The seasons mark the passing of time. The markings may be highly uncomfortable—the summer heat of the NYC subway, the wintry slush on a London street—but the important thing is the changing difference. The eponymous trees in the Philip Larkin poem, a favorite of my new friend's, seem to say, "Begin afresh, afresh, afresh," but their greenness is also "a kind of grief."
The news this spring is not unalloyed happiness. It seems important to acknowledge the gloom in the celebration, the fire in the cathedral. Jenifer Sang Eun Park's Autobiography of Horse, the co-winner of our Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize, is a Staff Pick over at The Paris Review. Ethos Books from Singapore has issued an important letter expressing their concern with Singapore's anti-fake news bill. I have just been made Poetry Editor at the Evergreen Review. So send me some poems. Even if we are not getting on with one another, we are all getting on in years.
Jee Leong Koh
April 25, 2019
Last Monday I finally met a Singaporean author whom I've admired for some time. Visiting from London, she is here for a month to work in her company's NYC office. At Grand Central Oyster Bar, we had a dozen oysters each. They all had beautiful names that reminded us of where they came from. The only name I remember now is Wellfleet Massachusetts, because of the Elizabeth Bishop poem. My dining companion expressed relief at the lightness of our repast, having been troubled by the size of American portions.
She loves living in London as much as I do living in New York. A reason? The seasons. This is not the shutter happiness of tourists, nor the novelty of snowfall to the tropical student. We have both lived in temperate countries for years, in fact, in each other's country, if the possessive is apt here for a pair of immigrants. The seasons mark the passing of time. The markings may be highly uncomfortable—the summer heat of the NYC subway, the wintry slush on a London street—but the important thing is the changing difference. The eponymous trees in the Philip Larkin poem, a favorite of my new friend's, seem to say, "Begin afresh, afresh, afresh," but their greenness is also "a kind of grief."
The news this spring is not unalloyed happiness. It seems important to acknowledge the gloom in the celebration, the fire in the cathedral. Jenifer Sang Eun Park's Autobiography of Horse, the co-winner of our Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize, is a Staff Pick over at The Paris Review. Ethos Books from Singapore has issued an important letter expressing their concern with Singapore's anti-fake news bill. I have just been made Poetry Editor at the Evergreen Review. So send me some poems. Even if we are not getting on with one another, we are all getting on in years.
Jee Leong Koh
April 25, 2019
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