Tilting Our Plates to Catch the Light
By Cyril Wong
2007
First Published
4.25
Average Rating
98
Number of Pages
Cyril Wong's latest collection of poems brings into play his background in music. Reminiscent of a concerto, an orchestra is invoked by poems that celebrate the lives of lovers distant and near, while a single narrative arises like a solo instrument amidst their chords, often blurring a distinction between the universal and the particular. This narrative is a love story that pierces through the shadow of the inevitable, accompanied by dreams and a reinterpretation of the myth of Shiva and Mohini, the fascinating female-incarnation of Vishnu. Interwoven with the motifs of time and death, these poems segue into each other like movements in a symphony, singing of equal parts tragedy and joy.
Avg Rating
4.25
Number of Ratings
181
5 STARS
43%
4 STARS
42%
3 STARS
12%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
1%
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Author
Cyril Wong
Author · 21 books
Cyril Wong is a two-time Singapore Literature Prize-winning poet and the recipient of the Singapore National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award for Literature. His books include poetry collections Tilting Our Plates to Catch the Light (2007) and The Lover’s Inventory (2015), novels The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza (2013) and This Side of Heaven (2020), and fiction collection Ten Things My Father Never Taught Me (2014). He completed his doctoral degree in English Literature at the National University of Singapore in 2012. His works have been featured in the Norton anthology, Language for a New Century, in Chinese Erotic Poems by Everyman’s Library, and in magazines and journals around the world. His writings have been translated into Turkish, German, Italian, French, Portuguese and Japanese.
