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The Ink Cloud Reader
In his disquieting third collection The Ink Cloud Reader, Kit Fan takes enormous risks linguistically, formally and visually to process the news of a sudden illness and the threat of mortality, set against the larger chaos of his beloved city Hong Kong and our broken planet. These shape-shifting poems are sensitive to anxiety and to beauty, questioning the turbulent climate of our time while celebrating the power of ink – of reading and writing.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 27, 2023
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275 people want to read
About the author
Kit Fan
9 books18 followersKit Fan is a novelist, poet and critic. His first novel Diamond Hill (2021) was published with critical acclaim. Goodbye Chinatown (2026) is his second novel. His third poetry collection, The Ink Cloud Reader (2023), was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize. He was shortlisted twice for the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, and was a winner of the Hong Kong University International Poetry Prize, Northern Writers Awards for Poetry and Fiction, Times/Stephen Spender Poetry Translation Prize and POETRY’s Editors Prize for Reviewing. He has written for the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and Telegraph. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Vice-Chair of Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), Co-Chair of the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), and a Trustee of New Writing North. He was born and educated in Hong Kong and now lives in the UK.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 17, 2023
(3.5) Kit Fan was raised in Hong Kong and moved to the UK as an adult. This is his third collection of poetry. “Suddenly” tells a version of his life story in paragraphs or single lines that all incorporate the title word (with an ironic nod, through the epigraph, to Elmore Leonard’s writing ‘rule’ that “suddenly” should never be used). The “IF” statements of “Delphi” then ponder possible future events; a trip to hospital sees him contemplating his mortality (“Glück,” written as a miniature three-act play) and appreciating tokens of beauty (“Geraniums in May”). “Yew,” unusually, is a modified sonnet where every line rhymes.
As the collection’s title suggests, it is equally interested in the natural and the human. There are poems describing the cycles of the moon (the lines of “Moon Salutation” curve into a half-moon parabola) and the wind. Ink pulls together calligraphy, the Chinese zodiac and literature. “The Art of Reading,” which commemorates important moments, real and imaginary, of the poet’s reading life, was a favourite of mine, as was “Derek Jarman’s Garden.” Fan also writes of memory and travels – including to the underworld. His relationship with his husband is a subtle background subject. (“Even though we’ve lived together for nearly twenty years and are always reading sometimes I can’t read you at all which I guess is a good thing”). It’s an opulent and allusive work that has made me eager to try more by Fan. Luckily, I have his debut novel on the shelf.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
As the collection’s title suggests, it is equally interested in the natural and the human. There are poems describing the cycles of the moon (the lines of “Moon Salutation” curve into a half-moon parabola) and the wind. Ink pulls together calligraphy, the Chinese zodiac and literature. “The Art of Reading,” which commemorates important moments, real and imaginary, of the poet’s reading life, was a favourite of mine, as was “Derek Jarman’s Garden.” Fan also writes of memory and travels – including to the underworld. His relationship with his husband is a subtle background subject. (“Even though we’ve lived together for nearly twenty years and are always reading sometimes I can’t read you at all which I guess is a good thing”). It’s an opulent and allusive work that has made me eager to try more by Fan. Luckily, I have his debut novel on the shelf.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
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August 18, 2023ch ch ch charmed ! I think The Ink Cloud Reader feels like a lot of full stops to open questions and uncertainties people writing poetry in the UK had. It's not precisely the higgs-boson, more like somebody who actually knew what they were doing wandered in and fixed all of the house's wonky corners. the three on the back are a good sample to place it. Over and over my sense of it was this is an Experienced collection, like the distillation of a good many years learning how to verse. A rare thing. the derek jarman poem reminded me oddly of wsg's 'Voyages of Alfred Wallis', partly because I've been back there lately, partly because of its blockiness. BIG COMPLIMENT HERE: Kit's work with the form was taking me back to Layli Long-Soldier,,, & it doesn't get much better. Not entirely all through, but we can hope
opening and closing pieces in here are perfect brackets. super acute image work yes, but I'm most interested in this light touch, 'Hokkaido', this !queerness.
opening and closing pieces in here are perfect brackets. super acute image work yes, but I'm most interested in this light touch, 'Hokkaido', this !queerness.
October 30, 2024
This collection managed to evoke the work of Louise Glück before she is eventually name-checked and quoted directly. And why shouldn't she be as one of most cherished literary celebrities in poetry? Well, I found this collection more than competent enough without any help from the Nobel laureate, when it simply consisted of Kit Fan musing through his allegorical ink clouds while writing a portrait of his lover. Yes there are plenty of classical references(A Story of a Labyrinth felt like a particular highlight that complements the personal), artistic quotations and modern day conflicts to create a rich intertextual work but Kit Fan doesn't need them:
"Then, the moon fought for every speck,
every freckle, dimple, pimple, every facial expression
of the shingle lost to the sun’s daily repossession.
But the moon was the most loved
anthology of repeatable failures. The simple
equation was not time times labour equals growth."
"Sometimes after I lost someone I let the Seine read me [...] The page I can’t return to walks through my chest like the sycamore as the wind stops the sun entering the window and I turn to clay after reading the last book in which I sit idle at my desk with a dove."
"Then, the moon fought for every speck,
every freckle, dimple, pimple, every facial expression
of the shingle lost to the sun’s daily repossession.
But the moon was the most loved
anthology of repeatable failures. The simple
equation was not time times labour equals growth."
"Sometimes after I lost someone I let the Seine read me [...] The page I can’t return to walks through my chest like the sycamore as the wind stops the sun entering the window and I turn to clay after reading the last book in which I sit idle at my desk with a dove."
July 16, 2023
What I need now, to change
the half-course of my life,
is to be struck by lightning
and survive it, like Hokusai.
This is another fine collection from the Forward Prize Shortlist. The best collection one, not the first collection. This collection was the result of a 'bolt of lightning' that hit Kit Fan when he was taking photographs inside an Italian Church of its marble and the patterns reminded him of lines of ink. The collection uses reading and writing as doors through which to explore different themes: politics, war, love, loss, literature, family, and place.
Hong Kong features a lot, which is understandable as Kit Fan was born in Hong Kong. He explores the effects of Chinese rule on Hong Kong in subtle but effective ways, particularly in '2047: A Hong Kong Odyssey'. A poem that presents us with a dystopian future where thoughts are policed in order to make people forget:
Do you remember how to remember
and disremember? Do you remember me?
Kit Fan also uses the topography of the page and the structure of poems to make points. One poem is like a play, another - and one of the best in the collection - 'Delphi' presents the text in six columns, reflecting the six surviving columns at the site which still stand. His poem about Yemen and the horror of the war there, called 'From the Yemen Data Project, is a numbered list. It is an effective anti-war poem.
So, to cut a long story short I enjoyed this. I recommend it. It is Kit Fan's third collection apparently so I'm going to look forward to digging into his earlier work.
the half-course of my life,
is to be struck by lightning
and survive it, like Hokusai.
This is another fine collection from the Forward Prize Shortlist. The best collection one, not the first collection. This collection was the result of a 'bolt of lightning' that hit Kit Fan when he was taking photographs inside an Italian Church of its marble and the patterns reminded him of lines of ink. The collection uses reading and writing as doors through which to explore different themes: politics, war, love, loss, literature, family, and place.
Hong Kong features a lot, which is understandable as Kit Fan was born in Hong Kong. He explores the effects of Chinese rule on Hong Kong in subtle but effective ways, particularly in '2047: A Hong Kong Odyssey'. A poem that presents us with a dystopian future where thoughts are policed in order to make people forget:
Do you remember how to remember
and disremember? Do you remember me?
Kit Fan also uses the topography of the page and the structure of poems to make points. One poem is like a play, another - and one of the best in the collection - 'Delphi' presents the text in six columns, reflecting the six surviving columns at the site which still stand. His poem about Yemen and the horror of the war there, called 'From the Yemen Data Project, is a numbered list. It is an effective anti-war poem.
So, to cut a long story short I enjoyed this. I recommend it. It is Kit Fan's third collection apparently so I'm going to look forward to digging into his earlier work.
August 17, 2023
Daring and experimental, The Ink Cloud Reader uses traditional poetic forms as well as inventive and playful positioning of the text on the page, to create something that is finely honed and consistently elegant. Kit Fan draws on the imagery of traditional ink and brush painting, as well as the work of wood-block print artists, such as Hokusai, to explore themes of mortality, family ties, and the fragile state of the planet. At times I felt these poems prioritised beauty or style over emotional or intellectual substances, and other times I was knocked off course by their intensity and transcendence. A particular favourite was "Yew", which rhymes every line using the "yew" sound, to great effect, "Self Portrait with Bananas," in which the speaker wishes he was a salamander, "How to be a Fern," a rhymed portrait of the beauty of the forest, and "Derek Jarman's Garden," a sad, strange and surreal portrait of Jarman's garden near Dungeness.
July 23, 2023
from 'The Art of Reading'
The last book I read before I died sits idle at my desk next to a clay dove by the window where the sun stops the wind entering by the sycamore walks through my chest and I can't return to the page (31)
--
Sometimes after I lost someone I let the Seine read me
And sometimes in autumn when the dead are yellowing the soil I placed my jacket among the leaves and tasted the print of newspapers (31)
--
The page I can't return to walks through my chest like the sycamore as the wind stops the sun entering the window and I turn to clay after reading the last book in which I sit idle at my desk with a dove (33)
The last book I read before I died sits idle at my desk next to a clay dove by the window where the sun stops the wind entering by the sycamore walks through my chest and I can't return to the page (31)
--
Sometimes after I lost someone I let the Seine read me
And sometimes in autumn when the dead are yellowing the soil I placed my jacket among the leaves and tasted the print of newspapers (31)
--
The page I can't return to walks through my chest like the sycamore as the wind stops the sun entering the window and I turn to clay after reading the last book in which I sit idle at my desk with a dove (33)
February 1, 2024
Kit Fan's poetry collection is a beautiful work of art - of building and rebuilding but never destroying anything. He captures the sounds, the pauses and silences of modern life, our anxieties, and how he sees beauty in this turbulent world.
Shapeshifting each poem, and even verses, might not be everyone's cup of tea, but certainly, it is mine.
Shapeshifting each poem, and even verses, might not be everyone's cup of tea, but certainly, it is mine.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews