Intruder

by Jerrold Yam

At home with loneliness and passing encounters, can we be familiar with another or even ourselves? Does love outweigh the uncertainty of its memory? In his third and latest collection, award-winning poet Jerrold Yam ushers us into a traveller's world through sensitive and enquiring eyes, navigating a landscape of flitting figures, thoughts and emotions.

Informed by expansive travel across Asia and Europe, Yam's poetry is as varied as his journey, exploring geysers, horse riding and Picasso, while building on his preoccupations with family, sensuality and displacement. His poems make fresh the contradictions of young adulthood, its heady mix of determined restlessness, bold insecurities, desire for intimacy and fear of commitment. In his unflinchingly honest treatment of these themes, Yam exhibits new range and complexity as he describes a shifting terrain, where moving on is as difficult as letting go.

Above all, Intruder is an attempt to make sense of the impermanent structures that hold up one's life. Home, like love, may be a fiction that we must resist claiming for our own. After all, can we--and should we--be more than intruders?

"Filial duties, family ties and the search for identity are the themes of Yam’s heartfelt personal poetry. The law undergraduate at University College London is a name to watch…"
- The Straits Times

"Jerrold Yam writes with an old voice and the youthful abandon of a poet out of his safe shell; a strong conviction of his depthless solitude yet weak in the presence of love and desire. His poems are lamentable etudes of one-word titles so vocal of absence and longing they are heartrending to those in the thick throes of love’s discovery, loss and reconciliation."
– Grace Chia

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

Jerrold Yam is the author of three poetry collections: Intruder (Ethos Books, 2014), Scattered Vertebrae (Math Paper Press, 2013) and Chasing Curtained Suns (Math Paper Press, 2012).

Reviews

[Quek · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Intruder" by Jerrold Yam
- captivating poetry collection that navigates the themes of displacement, familial ties, and the journey to find identity and belonging.
- collection tackles the complexities of familial relationships and the longing for a place to call home.
- in one poem, he writes, “I learn as much as they learn / about themselves, how parenthood / defies one’s capacity for love / and tolerance for neglect”, exemplifying Yam's exploration of the complexities of family dynamics, as well as the poignant realization that parenthood brings its own challenges and rewards.
- in another poem, Scab, Yam explores the body's ability to heal and the accompanying trauma: "Peeling it off / in half-slumber, / my fingers / aroused by the scent / of pliant tissue, such are / the ways the body / destroys itself." shows the body's fragility and resilience.

[lin]

“Already my palms hurt from the labour of resisting what no one understands as grace”

[nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

part 2 and 3 were my fave sections but that last poem hit cause it was exactly where i am in life rn :,) love feeling less alone

[Samantha Ruth Lai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I HAVE READ 'ornament' for school ohmygoodness when worlds collide dude~ academic reading meets recreational reading 😱

this was alright!!! poetry is just v hit or miss w me and a majority of these poems didn't hit home? :-( BUT here are some that stood out to me: memoir, castle?

lines that hit home: after everyone gets someone to walk them home, the way a child has everything to fear and yet fears nothing, there you are giving yourself over almost as close to selflessness as people in love can be, what else is there to demand from love?, shaping words that have no meaning other than the small importance we give them, a prophet without faith

[JB · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read this in full but have read some poems at university from this book. I intend to get this soon. Also waiting for Yam's next collection as it has been a while.

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yam fails to deliver the same thoughtfulness he displayed in Chasing Curtained Suns. The subject matter is dry, although his poetic skill is still as solid, and perhaps less unsure as it used to be. I hope this collection will serve as a step towards greater things.

[Review 1 - 05/05/17.]