RENDANG

by Will Harris

A rising star British poet’s debut collection is “a playful and insightful exploration of contemporary notions of self and society” (The Guardian).
 
Using long poems, ekphrasis, and ruptured forms, RENDANG is a startling new take on the self, and how an identity is constructed. Drawing on his Anglo-Indonesian heritage, Will Harris shows us new ways to think about the contradictions of identity and cultural memory. He creates companions that speak to us in multiple languages. They deftly ask us to consider how and what we look at, as well as what we don't look at and why. It is intellectual and accessible, moving and experimental, and combines a linguistic innovation with a deep emotional rooting.
 
“Harris offers an urgent and moving exploration of cultural identity and legacy . . . made all the richer by its unique narrative structure and playful attention to sound.” —Publishers Weekly
 
“A heartfelt reflection of how it feels to fall between different cultures, languages and places.” ―i-D Magazine
 
“Brims with soul, acuity and playfulness.” ―Financial Times
 
“It's the debut of the year.” —Sunday Times
 
“RENDANG is a wonder, and we are lucky to have it.” ―Poetry London
 
“Will Harris takes British poetry into new  RENDANG is an astonishing debut. . . . Many are the kind of poem that makes you put down the book for a while just to breathe.” ―Sarah Howe, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize
 

Genres: Poetry, Fiction

84 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 4, 2020

About the author

Will Harris is a writer of mixed Anglo-Indonesian heritage, born and based in London. He has worked in schools, led workshops at the Southbank Centre and teaches for The Poetry School. He is an Assistant Editor at The Rialto and a fellow of The Complete Works III. Published in the Bloodaxe anthology Ten: Poets of the New Generation, he was featured in ES Magazine as part of the “new guard” of London poets. His poem ‘SAY’ was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2018, and he won a Poetry Fellowship from the Arts Foundation in 2019. His debut pamphlet of poems, All this is implied, published by HappenStance in 2017, was joint winner of the London Review Bookshop Pamphlet of the Year and shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award by the National Library of Scotland. Mixed-Race Superman, an essay, was published by Peninsula Press in 2018 and in an expanded edition by Melville House in the US in 2019. His first full poetry collection, RENDANG, is forthcoming from Granta in the UK in February 2020 and from Wesleyan University Press in the US later in the year.

Reviews

[KW · Rating 3 out of 5]

attempt #8937 to understand poetry

[S P · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly dazzling debut, tender yet lucid, with poems that reverberate through history, geography, literature, art. Oscillating between Indonesia and London these poems do not always travel in the most direct way but always in startling, unexpected directions and dreamy detours. Harris is an intelligent poet and these finely-crafted poems are firmly generous in their ability to light up Harris' internal world: one of sincere contemplation, meditation and surprising (familial) intimacy. Harris' finely tuned poetic eye refracts and reflects through the haze of contemporary life to produce polyphonic, playful and reflexive poems. This collection glistens like a trick of the light, like a pavement shines after a light shower.

[Soumaya Keynes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A disclaimer, which is that Will is a friend and so I am not an impartial reader. Another disclaimer, which is that I do not read very much poetry. Still, I loved it.

[Ada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un poemari difícil amb moltíssimes coses que se m'han escapat. Però alguns poemes m'han semblat tan fantàstics que li poso un 4 per veure-ho més endavant i tornar-hi.

[Bagus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rendang is a Minangkabau dish that originated in the West Sumatra Province of Indonesia. It usually consists of meat that has been slow-cooked and braised in coconut milk, seasoned with a mixture of herbs and spices over several hours. The meat is hard and tender, which could be edible for a longer time, making it a perfect companion for the Minangkabau people who traditionally would migrate to some other regions of Indonesia, usually opening their own Minangkabau restaurants. Typically we could spot rendang among other dishes in Minangkabau restaurants, accompanying rice and cassava leaves.

Rendang is a perfect metaphor for the subtle message that Will Harris tries to convey through his poems in this book. As someone born from a bule British father and an Indonesian mother, he has a unique story to tell. Will Harris shuttles between places in his poems. He could show us the centre of London, the kampung where his mother grew up in Riau, the slums around Ciliwung River, all the way to Mariinskiy Canal in St. Petersburg, the prisons housing political prisoners in Diyarbakır, and Illinois. He makes me question both the value of belonging, while also making me realise the minuscule time we spend on this earth when seen from the perspective of omniscient beings.

Will Harris’ poems are unquestionably personal. They are his family history hidden between the lines. Some characters in his poems feel close to me, while others feel distant. He likes to create comparisons between elements in his poems, which I feel is a way to show the doubleness of nature, and how two different sides could exist in a single being. I like his poems, although some of them are too abstract to make sense of or require me to read or browse through in order to understand his cross-references (Harris’ poems often employ quotations from other poets or even philosophers, which add depths and complexities). It’s original (but also strikes me as a way to practice “steal like an artist!”). After all, rendang itself is no longer something that you can only find in Indonesia (the dish has traveled around Southeast Asia, making way to Malaysia, Singapore, and other places with Malay cultural influences).

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Half Got Out

I was reading a poem by
Ben Jonson where a
newborn half got out sees
the city burning and
decides to crawl back
into its mother’s womb
thine urn he calls it
it was Tuesday morning
I’d just seen Leo near
Leicester Square he
was reading a book by
W. S. Merwin a poet
himself newly returned
to his dead mother’s
womb I was feeling so
anxious Leo said kind of
low when I started to
read him it felt like I found
him at just the right time
I’m not sure but don’t
parents always talk of
their children arriving at
just the right time like
you might describe
finding your flip flops
just before a beach
holiday yes I said to Leo
he wrote that poem
didn’t he that sad dad
poem that starts
My friend says I was not a good son
—you understand
—I say yes I understand

—he says I did not go
—to see my parents very often you know
—and I say yes I know

I love the way the
dialogue loops back in
on itself the way you
know the poet is really
talking to or about
themselves it hurts to
read it it reminds me
I could be seeing my
parents right now who
live ten stops away yes
half an hour but I’m
not and what else am I
not doing knowing
really knowing from
my top down to my
toes from whose bourne
they’ll not return you
have to work though you
have to make a living don’t
you that may be true I
don’t know I left the
library in light rain to

meet Linda for a drink
at The Chandos and she
told me her granddad
used to go to Richmond
Park to fish he was a
wireless operating
sergeant during the war
it’s not like she cares it’s
just funny you know
even if she had a
Victoria Cross taped to
her forehead it wouldn’t
stop those dickheads at
the bar from asking if
she’s Latino or something
I fucking hate this city you
understand I say yes
I understand but I don’t
know how to leave I say yes
I know I mean sorry
I don’t know I don’t
know how to leave or
where I’d even go
I looped back to enter
the tube at Leicester
Square stepping over the
body of a homeless man
to travel further again
from my mother’s
womb to Turnpike Lane
the word interred echoing
in my head how many
acres of earth were there
above me then the
whole city might have
been burning I could
already have been dead

there’s no going back my dad
said but how many times
have I crossed the point
of no return only to
crawl back down King
St or Goldhawk Rd
to eat chicken noodle
soup and talk about seat
cushions from Lidl yes
I know they’re good value
thank you for dinner thank
you half got out and
half enwombed I know
that’s just the way it is I
understand the tube
threading me like a
complex stitch beneath
and through the city
back to the house we’ve
been sharing lately
when I got in I said I’m
home and you said yes
I know and then you
filled the kettle and sat
down next to me and
said

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Some mornings I wake up
early enough that it’s still
dark and I can imagine myself
unborn.”

Better than I'd expected, but there are some poems in there that start off well and then kind of lost me in the middle. I think they just require a bit more 'control' and confidence; plus a little less uncertain and prose-ey long lines (if I can put it that way). Maybe more attention to the rhythm and structure would make reading them a much better experience. But regardless - I enjoyed them; I thought it was fab. Some brilliant ideas - I'm hopeful about the next one (dare I assume there will be another one published) - I think it will brilliant.

I was worried that this would introduce itself like a very pretentious, 'hip' Lonely Planet pamphlet - but I was very wrong. As someone who has lived in London for some years now, I must say that Harris captured the bits he wrote about LDN brilliantly.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

honestly, a fantastic poetry debut. has very accessible themes and the imagery was gorgeous. rating poetry is hard, but i would recommend!

[eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

love me a good poem. and this was a good poem. i say good poem, but i mean lots of good poems hehe

[David Kenvyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that makes you think. It challenges you to work out what these poems mean for you. They are very personal poems, and that is their great strength.
The clue to these poems and how to understands them came to me with the words “Gants Hill”. This is very specific to me. I never thought that I would begin a review of a poetry book by mentioning Gants Hill, so I expect that I had better explain. Gants Hill is an underground station on the Central Line beneath a roundabout. It is one of the least poetic places you can imagine. I know this because I worked in the library there for a short while.
Yet, Gants Hill gets a mention in one of the prose poems in this book. That is because the poet’s mother worked there in a Thai restaurant when she first arrived in the UK These poems are very specific about places in London, in Chicago and in other places. It is also very specific about people. These poems mention Goldhawk Road, going for a drink in The Chandos, which is a pub on the corner of St. Martin’s Lane and Duncannon Street near Trafalgar Square. It is these specifics that anchor the poems in their reality. They show us the time and the place.
This is important because the poems are reflections on identity, family, relationships and understanding oneself in the context of others. The words are especially well chosen. When he describes a child going to sleep with cuddly toys around his head, you can see the barricade, you can feel the need for a safe space. There are specifics that tell you everything that you need to know. “He was from Angola, but grew up in Porto. He worked in Carphone Warehouse”. He is an African who grew up in Portugal and now works as a mobile phone salesman. What else do you need to know? The wording is much more succinct, precise and it leaves you to imagine the story.
There is much in these poems that is very specific. “We were at a pizza restaurant for Hugo’s birthday”. Dan contacts them to say that he is going to be late. It all sounds normal and it is, including Dan getting run over on the way to the restaurant. Then we learn that Dan is supposed to be going to Australia where he is going to finish his novel about a wood elf. This information leaks out of the poem as they are sitting in a pizza restaurant in Covent Garden, and the author is glancing out of the window. In the next poem we learn “I hadn’t seen Hugo in years” and that they used to play Sonic the Hedgehog in primary school. There is a certain playfulness in the way that the poet does this.
Will Harris has described these poems as “gnomic”. They certainly are not obvious. They are elliptical. They leave you, the reader, to draw out the meaning, and that meaning has to be relevant to yourself, and yet they tell very concise stories about ordinary people dealing with things that have happened in their lives.
To me, it is a marvel that someone who is so young can produce poetry that is so profound and knowing about life.
PS For those who do not know, Rendang is a spicy beef stew which is part of the cuisine of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

[zara meadows · Rating 3 out of 5]

Undoubtedly intelligent, but often too self-aware to have any substantial heart or weight. I died over the Morrissey and Heaney references, and I love how Harris incorporated canonical recognised intellects into a new body of contemporary work, but it quickly became name-drop-ish and the meaning of each poem easily because lost in many circumstances. The things I enjoyed about this collection were the open dialogues established between artefacts of the past and present, the importance of antiques in the modern world in comprehending our past, the ability to journey between location, space and time, the thresholds and power of language and the limits to which language can spread itself. On a thematic basis, this collection holds strong but no poem really screamed out to me as a work of ‘poetic’ beauty.

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rendang is a spiced meat dish from Sumatra -- according to Wikipedia. Rendang is an imaginative, assured and thought-provoking collection. Using short lines and playing with how words are put on the page, Harris challenges his reader. His work is rich in imagery and emotion, and full of emotional vulnerability, yet feels very authoritative and accomplished, like the work of a much older poet. Poems explore modern life in London, drawing on Harris's Indonesian heritage, as he looks at what it means to be a person of colour in England today. Harris is concerned with Britain's colonial heritage, and what multiculturalism means and looks like. His poems are often long, surreal, and yet he remains very much in control of his work. The final poem, the titular Rendang, was one of my favourites, a long sequence, travelling between childhood and adulthood, London and Chicago, and exploring kindness and aloneness. I was glad I read this collection.

[Steven Critelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yesterday I read through the first two sections of Will Harris's RENDANG (the name of an Indonesian spicy beef stew), without really getting it. Perhaps I was tired or distracted, because this morning something clicked with the multi-referential post-modernist poem, "Break," which begins the volume's third section. I went back and reread the first two sections and this time every poem connected with me in a big way.

First of all, I like Harris's sensibility in the way his imagination finds connections between present life and memory, as is "Another Life," which threads the happenings at a poetry reading gig with the courtship of his mother and father, where a reconstruction of the past is filtered through the imagery associated with more current events. This is often the way we recall the past, recasting it in terms of our present circumstances. Harris does this in a number of other poems, whether recalling the past through family tales or through the cultural heritage, and in so doing renders parables from them. Thus, "State-Building," for example, begins:

Break a vase, says Derek Walcott, and the love
that reassembles the fragments will be stronger than
that love which took its symmetry for granted.
When I read this I can only think who broke it?

But after the poet's initial seriocomic reaction, he cerebrally travels to an exhibit at the British Museum that features black slaves ('they don't say slaves') harvesting olives, most likely a scene from Britain's colonial past, which leads to a discussion of the political necessity of having worker bees (and their 'bee glue') as the national bulwark "against attack":

The freeborn men elsewhere, safe behind

their porticos, argue about the world's
true form, or talk of bee glue, used
to seal the hive against attack, later called
propolis, meaning that is has to come
before - is crucial for - the building of a state.

Here it's summer and bees groan inside
the carcass of a split bin bag. A figure passes,
is close to passed, when I see her face, half
shadow, marked with sweat or tear, the folds

beneath each downcast eye the same light
brown as - oceans off - my grandma. Mak.
Give me a love that's unassimilated, sharp
as broken pots. That can't be taken. granted.

My dad would work among the blue and white
pieces of a Ming vase - his job to get it
passable. He'd gather every bit and after days
assembling, filling in (putty, spit, glue),
draw forth - not sweetness - something new.

The Yeats-like brilliance of these connections should not be undervalued, for here Harris has united British colonialism with its legacy of racism and its contemporary transference to Brexit ('Here it's summer and bees groan inside / the carcass of a split bin gag.'). Only "unassimilated" love ("sharp as broken pots"), which is otherwise diminished and softened by efforts to be acceptable to conventional biases, can become "something new." Harris produces these wonderments in poem after poem.

As almost every poem must have a stage director (Prospero) and lyrical genius (Ariel), Harris interposes lyrical flights between narrations, such as in "The White Jumper," which is a wide-ranging poem of many postcards from the past and present (or near-present). The white jumper eludes racism, much like Wallace Stevens's "A Rabbit as the King of Ghosts" eludes death, by feats of the imagination, and by hook or crook avoids the "white" that has been culturally enshrined above all other colors as a symbol for purity, holiness, and perfection, as observed in this section:

Théophile Gautier dreamt of white swan-women
singing and swimming down the Rhine, each one
whiter than white down but one among them

clair de lune, pure, trailing boreal fumes, breasts
like bunched camellias - a blanched battle
of satin and Paros marble, communion host

and candle. Of what white was her whiteness
made? Pallor of alabaster. Duvet of dove. Lactic
drop and lily. Crystal ondine. Mother of God.

As opposed to these venerated images of white are the classic black images of Western literature, symbolizing death, disease, corruption, sin, hidden or obscure, and evil, even the evil that avenges evil, such as that typified by the "black hood worn by hangmen // to hide the world and keep its wearer hidden, to denote sin and keep it out." The ambiguity of color is subtly explored by Harris here, whose family adheres to the traditional associations of Islam. Therefore, the holiness of death is symbolized by his grandmother's "white-frilled coffin in a marble room" and grieved by mourners for forty days wearing "only white." Racism is similarly figured by the "white placard" carried by "a mother pushing a pram" outside a mosque, doubtlessly protesting the erection of the mosque near ground zero in New York "[a]t the end of 2001." In this way, Harris contests those associations and shows us how they can become refreshed in other points of view.

I should also note the geographical breadth of these poems, which take place in Jakarta, New York, Chicago, London, and other cities and towns, to which Harris bring his considerable cultural and literary reach to enrich the poetry and deepen our understanding of the time and place in which each of us live. RENDANG will reward deeper readings and deserves the utmost respect for its many achievements.

[Faraya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked a lot of poems in this book, but as a collection I didn't think it was very even, and seemed unsure of what it wanted to be. It didn't really move me in the way I want poetry to move me. That said, Harris is clearly a great writer

[Hayley]

highlights are break, SAY, half got out, and RENDANG

[Maryam · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great poetry collection that utilizes space and place in poetry, Harris has a way of utilizing cultural heritage, personal experience and contemporary philosophy to create a different cultural space within the poems themselves, operating as they fluctuate in and out of meaning. Harris makes the very poems a place and a space.

While many poets evoke place in their poetry and that geography may be one of the few constants in the history of English poetry, it is also the case that poems are kinds of places and they enact a form of dwelling. This collection reminded me of Heidegger and other philosophers who thought about the importance of place, dwelling and spatial interpretation.

My only complaint would be that there are times when the book lags, particularly 3/4 though the collection, and the name-bombing becomes too repetitive/redundant. The book layout was also a bit odd as I found the margins to be too narrow, making the book less inviting to read.

Nevertheless, an original and worthwhile piece!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘If only he could keep completely still he could remain/ unscattered, forever on the edge of rain’

‘how/ I felt about Christmas: things become meaningless severed/ from the body of ritual, of belief’

‘I’d been/ dawdling, staring at people on business lunches. Restaurants/ like high-end clinics, etherised on white wine’

‘Break a vase, says Derek Walcott, and the love/ that reassembles the fragments will be stronger than/ that love which took its symmetry for granted./ When I read this, I can only think who broke it?’

‘Here it’s summer and bees groan inside/ the carcass of a split bin bag’

‘Give me a love that’s unassimilated, sharp/ as broken pots. That can’t be taken; granted’

‘its dark/ blue almost purple/ colour threaded through/ with grief’

‘There are people who relieve themselves/ of information like a dog pissing against a street lamp to mark out/ territory, urination no longer in the service of the body, providing no/ relief. Likewise, conversation’

‘we were on a ridge above a/ forest looking down our feet in/ thicket dark our heads/ in thickest/ stars’

‘Do some people imagine themselves/ in the same relation to their place of birth as a scab to a wound?’

‘I want to call her closed lids/ buds because shit/ they look like petals/ tucked away which could/ at any moment bud’

‘Once the distance between us was so small/ you could have crossed over to me by footbridge./ Cross it, I said to you. Cross over to me./ But you didn’t want to./ And when I asked again, you were silent./ Now mountains and rivers have come/ between us, and at the mention/ of the footbridge you cry’

‘I turned into a mote/ of dust. The next day you sat in silence—the churring/ call of a nightjar outside—while I nested in your eye’

‘Once I was not myself or another man or either of/ their lips exactly but the expression of a kiss they shared/ and, at first, I have to say it was beautiful’

‘Other, mixed is what I tick/ in forms though some/ drunk nights I theorise my own/ transmembered norms’

‘I mean, if you were here you might complain/ but you’re not—we’re on a break—so it’s probably/ fine’

‘For both our sakes/ we haven’t spoken in over a month, but I still frame/ my thoughts as if they were to you. I empty the coffee as if/ you were here’

‘I’m aware of/ something in me broken. That doesn’t mean unhappy’

‘You slip into the break and look around, see past and future,/ love and sickness rearranged. Reordered. You feel yourself/ both whole and breached. As me you’

‘If I say this in a poem, it isn’t to defer responsibility but because/ I reject the possibility of narrating any life other than my own/ and need a voice capacious enough to be both me and not-me’

‘There must be some hard limit/ to language. To stop a thing/ from living is to kill a/ thing. This sound stopped in my throat/ is not a word. But could be’

‘Hurt/ was soft and low. The landing/ where that wonky wardrobe door/ hung open. Day and night’

‘It hurts to look at what can’t be/ because it wasn’t. To look/ therefore at what must be’

‘When the wide sky wakes crying/ I feed it milk. And weakened./ Lulled. It’s soon asleep’

‘We flowed into each other, saying—what? Saying. Not yet together, we were incapable of breaking. Cradled in pure being’

‘Flow, flow, flow. I wanted to be carried along, not spat out or upon’

‘To the eye of a being of incomparably longed life—to God or the devil—the human race would appear as one continuous vibration, in the same way a sparkler twirled at night looks like a circle’

‘I love the way the/ dialogue loops back in/ on itself the way you/ know the poet is really/ talking to or about/ themselves it hurts to/ read’

‘I loops back to enter/ the tube at Leicester/ Square stepping over/ the body of a homeless/ man to travel further/ again from my mother’s/ womb’

‘Some mornings I wake up/ early enough that it’s still/ dark and I can imagine myself/ unborn. I lay the pages/ of this book around me’

‘I couldn’t bear to look at/ it—to talk or think about it—so I covered it in silence./ I cordoned it off’

‘silence that/ accrues weight that/ takes up space/ and yet contains it’

‘I walk halfway through my wakeless days’

[Bivisyani Questibrilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there's one word for me to encompass the poetry within this book, I could almost say: home.

Perhaps it's a subjective way of looking at it, perhaps it is what the author aims for. What I see on each piece is this yearning to find meaning in things, to belong to a place or a person or a time, to connect with people we barely know. I'm not sure how to explain it, but I can relate with a lot of the things he explores in this book.

Harris did really well in portraying that feeling that every mixed race or mixed culture people would relate to, where he feels like belonging to a certain culture—a root culture of his parents—but feels pulled by the culture of where he grew up—the environment with which he feels familiar. As a fellow Indonesian myself, I cannot help but to smile at the little references he made of his Sumatran roots—little things about his grandmother and every time he uses rendang to symbolise this great culture his mother once belonged in, but mostly totally strange to him.

Style-wise, I really adore the way he writes. His poetries are written in a ballad-style, each one telling a story whose meaning is pretty open to the readers' interpretation—depending on what you're feeling at the moment or what you've experienced thus far. The way the poetries are written on the page, too, allows there to be a general fluidity from one poem to another, so I cannot really tell you which one my favourite piece is, but this is my favourite passage of the entire book:

Once the distance between us was so small
you could have crossed over to me
by footbridge.

Cross it, I said to you.
Cross over to me.
But you didn't want to.

And when I asked again, you were silent.

Now mountains and rivers have come
between us, and at the mention
of the footbridge you cry.

Honestly, I'm not a huge poetry fan—more often than not, I don't get it or it feels too flowery for me—but Will Harris's wordcraft hits me exactly where it hurts.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

" Whether you speak up or scarcely whisper,
you speak with all you are..."

This is a fine collection of poetry from Will Harris that manages to feel so well-crafted without losing its emotional core. Even by the standards of poets every line, every word, feel carefully collected. I felt that Will Harris looked at each and - to steal a line from Clive James - turned each phrase until it caught the light.

It seems personal too. I never know, even when a poet is using 'I' how truthful that 'I' is. With Rendang, I felt the 'I' was Will Harris. That this was his experience, his upbringing, and his truth. There's a certain meta quality to some of the poems too. The way in, 'From the other side of Shooter's Hill', he uses his girlfriend's experience and they explicitly demand he doesn't turn this experience into a poem:

"Don't you dare think about using me in a poem..."

Then he uses her in a poem.

These are also literary poems without being drowned in pretension. There are lines from other poems and songs dropped in. Books and albums are mentioned. There's even a mention of H.D. who I'm beginning to think I am almost the only person to have read, even though I know I'm not.

Well worth reading.

[Juliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

“He was swaying. I got the impression that he saw // his life as a sea voyage during which he’d done many strange, inexplicable and stupid things, of which shooting an albatross was one.” RENDANG, Will Harris’ electrifying debut collection, is a searching and wandering set of poems as tender and loving as they are slowly vicious and lively. With his gift for language and landscape, Harris knits his work together with care and subtle intricacy to explore “what it means to be a person now”, the people/places/things that comprise our personal identities in an overwhelming modern world. I particularly enjoyed the longer poems ‘RENDANG’ and ‘The White Jumper’, as well as ‘Break’, ‘All the Birds Are Your Husband’ and ‘Pathetic Earthlings’, all of which show the staggering breadth and depth of Harris’ craft.

[Yifei Men · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked this collection.

The opening piece is strong in the "it captures a moment beautifully" kind of way. It always help when a poet throws in a piece that's literal and easy to understand in the collection. As most of modern poetry, I don't get most of the poems here beyond perhaps an emotional landscape or a context (Colonialism, family heritage, race). I thought the longer poems do feel coherent and use the space and pages well in their recurrent themes / structures and diffractions. But then again, as I said, I can't claim to have "understood" much of it -- but the titles themselves are thought provoking "The white jumper" and the title poem "Rendang" are both laden with layers of meaning (or am I overthinking)?

[Joanna Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never feel that qualified to review poetry ?? but, I essentially know I enjoyed this but a bit less than recent poetry I've given 5*. this collection had some gems but just didn't quite all click with me somehow - I think I found the formal choices (mostly either prose poems or poems with really short lines - so playing with extremes perhaps ?) a bit harder to really engage with than other poetry I've read recently for some reason? and found a few of the poems either were very superficial or totally went over my head (I am assuming the latter, lol). but there were some gems and it's worth a read in that it offers some absorbing renderings of small moments embedded within diasporic life.

[maharani · Rating 3 out of 5]

the title of this book drew me in while i was perusing around libreria and had me questioning the author’s ethnicity. turns out it’s not will harris but will harris *indo accent* (indo pride as you can tell)

sometimes, his writing feels less like poetry and more like freestyle prose. i don’t fully know where he’s going with it but there are separate storylines that eventually converge and create a bigger picture

strong start with the first poem, especially the “tjandra sari, i call you wrongly. rend me rightly. rootless and unclear” like wow. yet another banger from state-building

[Julie Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have some reservations about this book. I didn't find it a particularly easy read but I haven't really given it the time I suspect it deserves. However, there are enough poems that I really engaged with to make me think I will go back to it. The poems I liked best on this first reading were, 'Holy Man' and 'Break'.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Once the distance between us was so small
you could have crossed over to me
by footbridge.

Cross it, I said to you.
Cross over to me.
But you didn't want to.

And when I asked again, you were silent.

Now mountains and rivers have come
between us, and at the mention
of the footbridge you cry."

this hit me directly in the solar plexus!!!

[Lizzie Obradovits · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection - liked the focus on locations and the emotions through miscommunication between characters, sometimes seeming to struggle to speak (From the other side of Shooter's Hill or Half Got Out). There were interesting links between the poems; familial ties, mortality, strangers, but these didn't feel repetitive.

[Cambridge Spine Crackers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strong collection. Harris’ style feels hard to describe, but he’s clearly a talented writer. Moments of surrealism pepper these works, and prose sits fairly comfortably next to more left-field structural works.

Themes: Otherness, Modernity, Tradition, Identity

Favourite poems: State-building, Glass Case, Lines of Flight, Break

[Greatania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fave excerpt fr My Name is Dai:
"There are people who relieve themselves of information like a dog pissing against a streetlamp to mark out territory, urination no longer in the service of the body, providing no relief. Likewise, conversation."

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5)

[Adinda Yuwono · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I wonder if before dogs lose consciousness they know themselves as dying or if it's as I imagine, like daylight breaking through an open door." - Break