#inez tan

[queeenpersephone]

words as power and pain

morning in the burned house, margaret atwood / journal, frida kahlo (tr. by robert hass) / hurricane, lin manuel miranda / the lakes, taylor swift / the throes of creation, leonid pasternak / abdication, mary ruefle / poems that can save your life a little, inez tan / wrote my way out, nas

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It's here! THIS IS WHERE I WON'T BE ALONE, my debut collection of stories! I'm happy to announce that there are many ways to order the book, and it will reach you wherever you live in the world. IN SINGAPORE: - Stores: Coming very soon to Neo Kinokuniya Singapore Main Store, BooksActually, and other fine places where books are sold! - Online from Epigram Books (https://shop.epigrambooks.sg/products/this-is-where-i-wont-be-alone), with free shipping in Singapore over $25. In other words, no charge for shipping if you buy two books! :) ANYWHERE ELSE OUTSIDE SINGAPORE: - Epigram Books (https://shop.epigrambooks.sg/products/this-is-where-i-wont-be-alone), shipping by weight - LocalBooks.sg (https://localbooks.sg/collections/authors/products/this-is-where-i-wont-be-alone), flat shipping rate on any number of copies (great for larger orders!) Above all, I hope you'll enjoy reading my first book! I think of these as stories about home and belonging in Singapore and beyond that I've wanted to read all along. I'm so excited for them to finally find their way to you. Yours in the company of book-lovers everywhere, Inez <3 https://ineztan.com/ 

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Flour and empty pockets

Apology for Bread by Inez Tan

On this day, like every other, we need bread. This loaf before me, the least of its kind, was not made to feel ashamed by the hands that arranged it gently facing outwards with the others, snug and proud

on the supermarket shelf. Last week, someone loaded bread onto a delivery truck, and someone will drive the plastic wrappers to a garbage dump afterwards. Someone is weatherproofing a house

for refugees in the suburbs, someone is serving drinks on a plane, and someone is holding a protest in the terminal where people have been detained for nine hours without food or water. Bread—even in a child's hands,

this load is nearly weightless, nothing but flour and empty pockets, the legacy of less than a gram of yeast, though not too little to matter—everything it touches will rise.

(Incredibly honored to have my poem, "Apology for Bread," in Issue 95 of The Collagist! I wrote this thinking about how amazing and unlikely it is that just a little bit of yeast can permeate a whole batch of dough. http://thecollagist.com/the-collagist/2018/1/20/apology-for-bread.html)

[ammg-old2]

Firstly, there are poems I love because they make me feel like I’m being present with someone who understands what’s going on inside me. Secondly, there are poems that allow me to dwell somewhere else for a little while, until I can come back rested and ready to see the world a little differently.

Poems That Can Save Your Life a Little (Inez Tan)

[largethingslargerthings]

Meditative Week of Poetry: Inez Tan

My new roommate’s car is a no man’s land of things that belonged to an ex-husband and his ex-wife. My roommate, the mutual neutral friend, patiently ferries these objects across town, brokering, listening, shielding each from the presence of the other. They’ve taken their lives back and left the broken body of a disassembled lamp, antique china wrapped in rags, and I hate my dirty pity when I think of how you could have looked at these unloved vestiges, and loved them. It was not Mary and Christ, but the beauty of paintings of Mary and Christ that caused your heart to ache for the faith you were raised in, and turned from, no longer holy, but sacred to you still. Did I give you anything you couldn’t bear to give back? I have kept your letters to remember the word I lost.

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Like a dark yellow yolk

Structure can keep you together, but it doesn't make you whole. New poem in Salamander Issue 53.

Structure

by Inez Tan

For months afterwards, I don’t long for wildness.

I listen less to songs than their chord progressions,

read only Agatha Christie novels,

set rigid rules about when to sleep and eat.

Fragile and ashamed like a dark yellow yolk,

I burst constantly, I get my grief on everyone.

I read that in Israel, parents ask the state to harvest

their sons’ genetic material to be planted

in strangers’ wombs, and the state

complies. I know I would have loved

to ask you what you thought of that story.

I still want to talk to you about everything.

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These unloved vestiges

Sometimes I close my eyes and think of the word that comes to mind when I remember a person. Sometimes that word changes. New poem in Salamander Issue 53 - "I think of how you could have looked at these unloved vestiges, and loved them."

  Deconsecration by Inez Tan My new roommate’s car is a no man’s land of things that belonged to an ex-husband and his ex-wife. My roommate, the mutual neutral friend, patiently ferries these objects across town, brokering, listening, shielding each from the presence of the other. They’ve taken their lives back and left the broken body of a disassembled lamp, antique china wrapped in rags, and I hate my dirty pity when I think of how you could have looked at these unloved vestiges, and loved them. It was not Mary and Christ, but the beauty of paintings of Mary and Christ that caused your heart to ache for the faith you were raised in, and turned from, no longer holy, but sacred to you still. Did I give you anything you couldn’t bear to give back? I have kept your letters to remember the word I lost.

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I read the fairytale-inspired "The Goose Girl" and reality-inspired "Lee Kuan Yew Is Not Always the Answer." Kat reads poems from the pandemic that will utterly break and remake your heart. https://youtu.be/LkQeytEn6Bg Good Words is a web-based reading series that brings together prose and poetry writers to raise money for charitable organizations that promote equity and restorative justice. Hosted by Lauren Prastien and Katie Willingham!

Donation spaces chosen by this week's readers:  CD Forum supporting black artists (https://www.cdforum.org/)  Cave Canem Foundation supporting black poets (https://cavecanempoets.org/).

Upcoming events:  https://www.facebook.com/Good-Words-Reading-Series-100980161682363/