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Monkeypuzzle
Wong, Rita
100 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1999
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About the author
Rita Wong
18 books15 followersRita Wong is the author of four books of poetry: monkeypuzzle (Press Gang, 1998), forage (Nightwood Editions, 2007), sybil unrest (Line Books, 2008, with Larissa Lai) and undercurrent (Nightwood Editions, 2015). forage was the winner of the 2008 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and Canada Reads Poetry 2011.
Wong is an associate professor in the Critical and Cultural Studies department at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design on the unceded Coast Salish territories also known as Vancouver.
Wong is an associate professor in the Critical and Cultural Studies department at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design on the unceded Coast Salish territories also known as Vancouver.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 11, 2019
Monkeypuzzle is an anthology of poems written by Rita Wong and addresses her identity as a bisexual Asian woman.
This collection of poetry is dedicated to "peace, love and justice" a gesture that foregrounds the issues of international justice and human and workers' rights that permeate the poems in various ways. In keeping with this dedication, the poems explore questions of gender, sexuality, race, labor, and globalization in relation to public culture.
Nearly fifty poems are divided into four sections. The poems move between local, national, and global spaces, drawing attention to the ways in which cultural, economic, and geographic positioning disrupt easy identifications with various communities.
Like most anthologies, there are weaker contributions and Monkeypuzzle is no exception. However, even those weaker poems – comparatively speaking, were constructed rather well and there were a handful of poems that I had to read several time and ponder about it throughout the day for me to understand them (I think), but that is par for the course for me with my relationship with poetry.
All in all, Monkeypuzzle is a wonderful collection of personal poems, which wonderfully expresses the life of a Chinese-Canadian woman, her political and social struggles, and deals with questions of her gender, sexuality, and her race.
This collection of poetry is dedicated to "peace, love and justice" a gesture that foregrounds the issues of international justice and human and workers' rights that permeate the poems in various ways. In keeping with this dedication, the poems explore questions of gender, sexuality, race, labor, and globalization in relation to public culture.
Nearly fifty poems are divided into four sections. The poems move between local, national, and global spaces, drawing attention to the ways in which cultural, economic, and geographic positioning disrupt easy identifications with various communities.
Like most anthologies, there are weaker contributions and Monkeypuzzle is no exception. However, even those weaker poems – comparatively speaking, were constructed rather well and there were a handful of poems that I had to read several time and ponder about it throughout the day for me to understand them (I think), but that is par for the course for me with my relationship with poetry.
All in all, Monkeypuzzle is a wonderful collection of personal poems, which wonderfully expresses the life of a Chinese-Canadian woman, her political and social struggles, and deals with questions of her gender, sexuality, and her race.
Displaying 1 of 1 review