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| Sunday, August 17, 2008
Book > Against Certain Capture by Miriam Wei Wei Lo Writer : Aaron Lee2004, Five Islands Press (32 pp)  Miriam Loh's bookAgainst Certain Capture is the debut poetry collection from Miriam Lo who was born in Canada, grew up in Singapore and now lives in Australia with her pastor husband and child. This slender volume contains 22 poems tracing Lo's family history from the re-imagined lives of her two grandmothers, one Australian and the other Chinese. Australian author Bronwyn Lea says on the back cover that Lo's poems tell the stories of "two women...from different worlds...whose histories and genes coalesce in the body of the author, as she stands at the far reaches of her family tree and looks back with wisdom, courage, and always with tenderness". Reading the collection through in one sitting, the poems easily move between the larger theme of exploring her Asian roots and the intimacy afforded by the poet's interpretation of personal circumstances long past. The collection is split into two parts, the first inspired by the life of Lo's Malaysian-born Chinese grandmother. Here, Lo rises to the challenge and does not shy away from experimenting with form. The opening poem "Run", is written in three columns with very short lines, yielding an effect not unlike reading traditional Chinese texts. Lo also uses Chinese characters in the poems in this section-- just enough to accomplish her historiographical purposes, but not enough to alienate non-Chinese readers. In the poem "Do You Love Me" we gain an insight into the important role of Christian faith and values in her family struggles. The second part of the collection consists of 12 poems inspired by Lo's Australian grandmother. It opens with "Leaving the Goldfields", the strongest piece in the entire book. In this poem the poet's grandmother is imagined as a young woman, leaving her childhood home to settle somewhere else, clutching a drawing of a house with the shape of a roof, the way two lips purse and open to say farewell. Lo's poetry is written fluidly, with strong narratives; with a remarkable and consistent emotional authenticity in every poem. The poet succeeds in sensitively capturing and intimately imagining the lives of the two important women in her family. Lo also manages to merge in a masterly fashion, historical markers such World War II with personal histories, at once yielding a remarkable sense of individuality and family. The collection showcases Lo's easy handling of subject matter and language, and makes for a thoroughly enjoyable, if too short, read. Understandably, this exceptional book was well-received and won the 2004 Western Australia Premier's Book Award.
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