goddess by Cheryl Tan
goddess
by Cheryl Tan
Querencia Press
September 13, 2024
goddess by Cheryl Tan, forthcoming from Querencia Press, is a poetry collection that “pieces together a tale of desire, destruction and loss.”
I had the privilege of getting to review this chapbook early, and it was a lovely little book!
goddess is short and sweet. Only ten poems long, the reverential and reflective tones throughout each piece create a whole that is full of wonder, sorrow, and deep yearning.
Neither yearning™ nor religious background (and/or trauma) are lacking in LGBTQ+ literature, but I think that the specific images Tan evokes throughout the book are what make her poems really feel like her story. This is most apparent to me in the longer poems where scenic depictions of the speaker’s interactions with their love interest(s) are interspersed and woven with the rolling poetics. “sans merci” is the most immersive at this, with the following lines being a particular stand-out for me:
“where I cracked my face on your sofa and you fixed my
tattered nose - scattered behind the curtains - You broke my face
on your shoulder and I said thank you - thank you - to your voice
over the telephone - the day you used me to
sweep your house”
It is lines like these that feel more intimate, as well as more packed, which is helpful in such a short chapbook. I think this is where the opening poem, “holy,” actually falls short; while it has imagistic clarity, it feel smore surface-level emotionally and lacks the context of the speaker’s yearning that all the latter poems provide. “Armenian Church, Singapore” almost lacks in the same way, but are elevated by more wholly thematically relevant lines like “the voyeur in me peeling back dirt” and “Distant yammerings of resurrection.” In my opinion, “holy” would actually be more fitting at the end of the book rather than the beginning, so that the coveting in the opening line, “and i stole you the way a child steals candy from the temple,” is really highlighted.
My favorite element of goddess, however, is the thing I am always the biggest sucker for in poetry: sonics. Quick-paced alliterations and assonances, sometimes abruptly slowed by line breaks or white space, it truly feels like a marriage of the stream-of-consciousness style teenage crush journal entries and the restrained chanting of prayer or hymns. It very much heightens the devotional emotions throughout the chapbook, and makes me want to hear these poems out loud.
goddess releases one week from today on September 13, 2024. Learn more about the collection and (pre)order your copy here: https://www.querenciapress.com/goddess-by-cheryl-tan
Thank you Querencia Press for the complimentary ARC of this title! I appreciate the early opportunity to read Cheryl’s work.
— Kylie