There is a focus of self in Shelley Wong’s as she appears. Like a self can be constructed in sentimental ways. A sensuality to independence. It’s common to note how pleasurable it is to learn who you are to yourself. Like that negotiation between lonely and alone. And what I admire in Wong’s book are the ways she frames aloneness. There’s that invigorating morning walk in “Weather Advisory” that could be a walk home after spending the night with someone, or it could be that especially delicious solitude that comes with a morning walk when you’re going no where in particular. In this case, the poet is on Fire Island, with disheveled hair, a fog somewhere in the distance.
It’s one of many poems that benefits from a centering perspective. Which might sound like too psychological a take on the reading. I’m not meaning to speak to what I think might be happening in the poet’s life. More how the poem situates itself within its occasion. Yes, the book seems to chronicle the poet’s separation from a long term partner. And, yes, it’s that part of the breakup where she’s distanced herself from the actual breakup. So that, separate and alone, she can recognize the more tender parts of her life. This self that proposes itself in the opening section of as she appears feels like fertile ground for the new self that will emerge. In “Watch Hill,” Wong describes the service berry tree, whose blooming signals the ground thawing after winter. An apt image for this moment in the breakup. So much is possible and unknown. But also the poet is learning there is a lot for her to know about herself
In essence, the poems fashion the self as a delicate formation. Someone who’s in process, in transition to a new outlook on life, with a new self to do that looking. I guess I would say many poems feel like a declaration of independence, but with a softer emphasis on the “declaration” part, and a subtle assertiveness on the “independence.” In some of my favorite poems, the poem constructs itself from a sequence of very independent clauses. A method she uses in the book’s opening poem, “For the Living in the New World,” and a later poem, “Invitation with Dirty Hands.” The poem is like an expressive bloom, with each sentence like an individual petal complementing the petals around it.
The following tags are a purely subjective approach I’ve used for reading this book. Tagging, for me, acknowledges that slotting a book into hard categories or “schools” can be elusive when it comes to 21st Century poetry. In response, I’ve developed tags whose lenses operate from subject matter, identity poetics, and stylistics.