Thanksgiving 2015
So I returned from my Thanksgiving getaway to learn that my book Steep Tea has been listed by the Financial Times as one of four best books of poetry of 2015, along with the new annotated Poems of T. S. Eliot by Christopher Ricks and Kim McCue; Horace: Poems ed. by Paul Quarrie; and Citizen by Claudia Rankine. Completely unexpected, completely floored.
"The Singapore-born poet’s first UK publication is disciplined yet adventurous in form, casual in tone and deeply personal in subject matter. Koh’s verse addresses the split inheritance of his postcolonial upbringing, as well as the tension between an émigré’s longing for home and rejection of nostalgia." - Maria Crawford in UK's Financial Times
The time away was otherwise dominated by reading Amy Sueyoshi's study of Yone Noguchi's romantic relationships in a book aptly titled Queer Compulsions. Through the study of the correspondence between Yone and his lovers, Sueyoshi persuaded me that his most passionate and most sustained feelings were for the older white writer Charles Warren Stoddard. His love for Ethel Armes was full of ups and downs, and starts and stops, until she ended their engagement finally when she learnt that Yone was "married" to Léonie Gilmour and had a son (the sculptor Isamu Noguchi) with her. Ethel herself had passionate feelings for other women. As for Léonie, she realized from early on that Noguchi did not love her and so took the difficult independent path of raising Isamu by herself. Yone's marriage in Japan to his domestic servant Matsu Takeda was a matter of convenience, as the poet turned himself into a strictly heterosexual and stridently nationalistic writer. Throughout the study, Sueyoshi showed sensitivity to the ways in which race, nation, and sexuality (as the sub-title promises) affects an immigrant hungry for love and literary fame. She underlines, in a clear-eyed manner, how same-sex desire is not necessarily revolutionary even when it is in revolt against social norms and moral mandates.
Of all the movies we watched at Ty and Di's place, the best was Out in the Dark (2012), directed by Michael Mayer. The lovers, coming from opposites sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, quick discover that being gay complicates the already messy situation. Nicholas Jacob plays the Palestinian student Nimr Mashrawi with just the right touch of resignation. Michael Aloni's Roy Schaefer, a young Israeli lawyer, discovers the need for moral compromise in order to save them both. Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children (2012) was, however, a big disappointment. The problem lay in having Salman Rushdie write the screenplay. The novelist had no clue how to structure a film, and so threw in everything and the kitchen sink. The novel should be made into at least three feature films. If the Hunger Games series is made into four films, why should the Booker of Bookers deserve a less epic treatment?
On Friday, we drove to Hudson to visit the Basilica Farm and Flea. The line wrapped around the beautiful old forge and foundry, and so we gave up trying to get in and went antiquing in a nearby warehouse instead. My discovery was a newly opened print studio called Inky Editions. Artists can produce fine art prints there by working with non-toxic intaglio-based techniques.
"The Singapore-born poet’s first UK publication is disciplined yet adventurous in form, casual in tone and deeply personal in subject matter. Koh’s verse addresses the split inheritance of his postcolonial upbringing, as well as the tension between an émigré’s longing for home and rejection of nostalgia." - Maria Crawford in UK's Financial Times
The time away was otherwise dominated by reading Amy Sueyoshi's study of Yone Noguchi's romantic relationships in a book aptly titled Queer Compulsions. Through the study of the correspondence between Yone and his lovers, Sueyoshi persuaded me that his most passionate and most sustained feelings were for the older white writer Charles Warren Stoddard. His love for Ethel Armes was full of ups and downs, and starts and stops, until she ended their engagement finally when she learnt that Yone was "married" to Léonie Gilmour and had a son (the sculptor Isamu Noguchi) with her. Ethel herself had passionate feelings for other women. As for Léonie, she realized from early on that Noguchi did not love her and so took the difficult independent path of raising Isamu by herself. Yone's marriage in Japan to his domestic servant Matsu Takeda was a matter of convenience, as the poet turned himself into a strictly heterosexual and stridently nationalistic writer. Throughout the study, Sueyoshi showed sensitivity to the ways in which race, nation, and sexuality (as the sub-title promises) affects an immigrant hungry for love and literary fame. She underlines, in a clear-eyed manner, how same-sex desire is not necessarily revolutionary even when it is in revolt against social norms and moral mandates.
Of all the movies we watched at Ty and Di's place, the best was Out in the Dark (2012), directed by Michael Mayer. The lovers, coming from opposites sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, quick discover that being gay complicates the already messy situation. Nicholas Jacob plays the Palestinian student Nimr Mashrawi with just the right touch of resignation. Michael Aloni's Roy Schaefer, a young Israeli lawyer, discovers the need for moral compromise in order to save them both. Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children (2012) was, however, a big disappointment. The problem lay in having Salman Rushdie write the screenplay. The novelist had no clue how to structure a film, and so threw in everything and the kitchen sink. The novel should be made into at least three feature films. If the Hunger Games series is made into four films, why should the Booker of Bookers deserve a less epic treatment?
On Friday, we drove to Hudson to visit the Basilica Farm and Flea. The line wrapped around the beautiful old forge and foundry, and so we gave up trying to get in and went antiquing in a nearby warehouse instead. My discovery was a newly opened print studio called Inky Editions. Artists can produce fine art prints there by working with non-toxic intaglio-based techniques.
Basilica Hudson
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