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Forage

by Rita Wong

Forage, Rita Wong’s second collection, is poetry that attacks modern power politics and attempts to modernize traditional poetics without stripping them of their value.

These are poems that find their voice in the didactic. Indeed, the instructional nature of Wong’s poems often feels like a conscious attempt to barrage the reader with syntactical information rather than poetic concern, perhaps mirroring the obscene amount of information North Americans consume daily.

Food is a consistent theme in Forage and acts as a metaphor for the politics of our time; the poems analyze a malnourished moral and political order. The ideas presented here are certainly important, but there is little room for the poetic among the political. The reader wants a respite from all this information or extraordinary images to provide breathing space between arguments. There are, however, well-laid rhyme structures and instances of humorous wordplay to help keep readers’ heads above water amid the bustling verse.

The book’s marginalia are arresting and provide needed instances of poetic subtlety. Chinese characters adorn the borders, and early photographs of Chinese labourers add dynamism to the work. The deliberate lack of order and punctuation makes a silent reading of this collection confusing, but these poems find a more vibrant voice when read aloud.

 

Reviewer: Evie Christie

Publisher: Nightwood Editions

DETAILS

Price: $16.95

Page Count: 128 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 978-0-88971-213-3

Released: Dec.

Issue Date: 2008-1

Categories: Poetry