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Loop of Jade
*WINNER OF THE T. S. ELIOT PRIZE 2015**WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES / PETERS FRASER + DUNLOP YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2015**SHORTLISTED FOR THE FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION 2015*There is a Chinese proverb that ‘It is more profitable to raise geese than daughters.’ But geese, like daughters, know the obligation to return home. In her exquisite first collection, Sarah Howe explores a dual heritage, journeying back to Hong Kong in search of her roots.With extraordinary range and power, the poems build into a meditation on hybridity, intermarriage and love – what meaning we find in the world, in art, and in each other. Crossing the bounds of time, race and language, this is an enthralling exploration of self and place, of migration and inheritance, and introduces an unmistakable new voice in British poetry.
80 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 7, 2015
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About the author
Sarah Howe
16 books39 followersSarah Howe is a British poet, academic and editor. Born in Hong Kong to an English father and Chinese mother, she moved to England as a child. Her poetry is precisely painted and aesthetically striking, often grappling with, and delighting in, problems of cultural identity and representation. Like Kei Miller’s explorations of hybridity and cross-cultural identities, Howe’s poetry is inventive, erudite and highly playful, engaging the reader with its passion for language’s intrigues and inadequacies. Howe’s first book Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for best first collection in 2015.
Sarah Howe studied for her BA, MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, also spending a year as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard. In her academic work, she has a particular interest in visual qualities in Renaissance literature and in the psychology of visual perception. Until 2015 she was a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where she taught Renaissance literature. In 2015-16, she will be a Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute. She is the founding editor of <>i>Prac Crit, an online journal of poetry and criticism.
(from http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net...)
Sarah Howe studied for her BA, MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, also spending a year as a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard. In her academic work, she has a particular interest in visual qualities in Renaissance literature and in the psychology of visual perception. Until 2015 she was a Research Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where she taught Renaissance literature. In 2015-16, she will be a Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute. She is the founding editor of <>i>Prac Crit, an online journal of poetry and criticism.
(from http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net...)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
November 22, 2015
One of my favorite poetry books read this year. This debut collection has been nominated for the Forward and T.S. Eliot poetry prizes. Born in Hong Kong and raised in England, Howe has a Chinese mother and English father. Several long poems are based on her own travels in China as well as her mother’s memories: “My heart is bounded by a scallop shell – / this strange pilgrimage to home” (from “Crossing from Guangdong”). She also reflects on her biracial identity: “A personal Babel: a muddle. A Mendel? / Some words die out while others survive. Crossbreed. Half-caste. Quadroon.”
A long multi-part poem is based on the classifications of animals in Jorge Luis Borges’s fictional Chinese encyclopedia, The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge (from The Analytical Language of John Wilkins). I enjoyed the interesting variety of page layout and stanza length – some poems are dense text blocks, while others have only two or three words to a line.
A long multi-part poem is based on the classifications of animals in Jorge Luis Borges’s fictional Chinese encyclopedia, The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge (from The Analytical Language of John Wilkins). I enjoyed the interesting variety of page layout and stanza length – some poems are dense text blocks, while others have only two or three words to a line.
December 27, 2015
Loop of Jade is an amazing first collection from Sarah Howe, a British poet who earned her doctorate from the University of Cambridge and for the 2015-2016 term was named a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute. She teaches Renaissance literature and her poetry reflects the elegance of her métier. Loop of Jade was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection of 2015.
There is such intelligence, beauty and richness in this work, I find myself re-reading poems, not just for a deeper understanding of their argument, but for the delight of re-experiencing their logopeia (Pound's term for "the dance of the intellect among words"). Take, for example, this excerpt from "Woman in the Garden," an ekphrastic poem based upon Pierre Bonnard's painting:
What you see on entering a room -
the red-checked
blouse, burning
on a chairframe in the attic crook
will last a lifetime.
She smiles to see her slim form continue
in the sunlit legs
of the stool, the lilac towel fallen across its face,
and she thinks –
wisteria peeling from the house one mid-April –
head cocked
as if marooned on the way to a word.
The mixture of images reflects the mind's critical self-examination that is ever illusive ("marooned on the way to a word"), a theme that was such a deep vein for Wallace Stevens to mine, becomes more explicit in the next stanza
. . . . .the mirror
is a locked garden
and sometimes she visits that country.
Through its keyhole
the stool in miniature
wades a cobalt sea, or some accurate idea of sea –
a greybird
with salmon feet
engaged in telling things new
a song veined
with rust from the throat.
Image and the meaning are always reappraising each other as "some accurate idea." The keyhole of the "locked garden" at once pretends to reveal a secret while reductively distorting our vision, like Plato's cave in which we are to guess the happenings in the world from the shadows it makes on the cave's walls. The ending of the poem shows us the expanding vista of the ever-unsatisfied human nature longing for more:
. . . . .The only thing she ever
longed for
was an enamel bath, the running water
tinged
with cochineal, a window, somewhere
heightening the tone –
the bay at Cannes,
the mountains of the Estérel.
In other words, in this seemingly incidental poem about a painting, Howe invokes a few of the central riddles underpinning civilization. [Though Bonnard made a few paintings that depict women in a garden, I could find none on the web that precisely corresponded to Howe's poem, which makes it that much more intriguing.]
There is an excellent article about Howe at the Poetry International Rotterdam website. This collection is a keeper.
There is such intelligence, beauty and richness in this work, I find myself re-reading poems, not just for a deeper understanding of their argument, but for the delight of re-experiencing their logopeia (Pound's term for "the dance of the intellect among words"). Take, for example, this excerpt from "Woman in the Garden," an ekphrastic poem based upon Pierre Bonnard's painting:
What you see on entering a room -
the red-checked
blouse, burning
on a chairframe in the attic crook
will last a lifetime.
She smiles to see her slim form continue
in the sunlit legs
of the stool, the lilac towel fallen across its face,
and she thinks –
wisteria peeling from the house one mid-April –
head cocked
as if marooned on the way to a word.
The mixture of images reflects the mind's critical self-examination that is ever illusive ("marooned on the way to a word"), a theme that was such a deep vein for Wallace Stevens to mine, becomes more explicit in the next stanza
. . . . .the mirror
is a locked garden
and sometimes she visits that country.
Through its keyhole
the stool in miniature
wades a cobalt sea, or some accurate idea of sea –
a greybird
with salmon feet
engaged in telling things new
a song veined
with rust from the throat.
Image and the meaning are always reappraising each other as "some accurate idea." The keyhole of the "locked garden" at once pretends to reveal a secret while reductively distorting our vision, like Plato's cave in which we are to guess the happenings in the world from the shadows it makes on the cave's walls. The ending of the poem shows us the expanding vista of the ever-unsatisfied human nature longing for more:
. . . . .The only thing she ever
longed for
was an enamel bath, the running water
tinged
with cochineal, a window, somewhere
heightening the tone –
the bay at Cannes,
the mountains of the Estérel.
In other words, in this seemingly incidental poem about a painting, Howe invokes a few of the central riddles underpinning civilization. [Though Bonnard made a few paintings that depict women in a garden, I could find none on the web that precisely corresponded to Howe's poem, which makes it that much more intriguing.]
There is an excellent article about Howe at the Poetry International Rotterdam website. This collection is a keeper.
February 26, 2016
Howe’s had a lot of publicity recently, with many an Establishment asshat contending that she can’t possibly have won the TS Eliot Prize because she’s any good at poetry; no, it’s probably because she’s young, erudite, beautiful, and mixed-race (snort!gasp!wheeze!) I read a Guardian review of Loop of Jade before reading the book itself, and I was braced for irritating, unnecessary polysyllables, but fuck me, was I ever blown away instead. If you lift almost any line of poetry out of context and say it sneeringly, it can sound ridiculous; the work of TS Eliot himself is proof of this. (“Do I dare to eat a peach?” indeed.) Howe’s lines, in their contexts, are allusive, balanced, rich, conversational enough to make sense without ever sounding merely conversational, if you see what I mean. It’s a genuinely impressive collection; not one of these poems feels thin or glib or weak or pointless, which is something I cannot say of either of the collections of Don Paterson or Michael Symmons Roberts that I have read in the past eighteen months, much though I admire them both. And, for a collection that is touted as being Very Much About a mixed-race legacy, it is somehow about more than that; you can draw things from it about coming to terms with your identity, your history (as mediated by your parents), full stop. The horrors in which you are implicated merely by blood; the traumas of which you are forced to be, on some level, a victim, or a consequence, likewise. It’s terrific poetry, and the way it’s been received in the national press is a breathtaking reminder of how racist and sexist the literary establishment still is.
April 21, 2017
3.5 stars
June 24, 2018
A beautiful collection that weaved language and history from the conventional East and West. I especially loved the use of classical antiquity, which occupies such a liminal and fluid (historical, physical) space, and thus undercuts those categories. The untranslated Chinese was also such a joy.
The imagery tended to be rather elusive for me, though, and I didn't connect with it emotionally as much as I wanted to. (And I really wanted to love it. I bought it last year, to bring with me back to visit family in HK, to start reading there. And the classical imagery was such a delight and surprise for this former Classics student, and it was well executed. I still just stayed more intellectually engaged with the text, and seldom emotionally pulled. And even then, I found myself feeling quite lost while reading.)
I think I might love it more if I reread it in the future, maybe when I'm more in the mood or mindset for a high poetic register.
The imagery tended to be rather elusive for me, though, and I didn't connect with it emotionally as much as I wanted to. (And I really wanted to love it. I bought it last year, to bring with me back to visit family in HK, to start reading there. And the classical imagery was such a delight and surprise for this former Classics student, and it was well executed. I still just stayed more intellectually engaged with the text, and seldom emotionally pulled. And even then, I found myself feeling quite lost while reading.)
I think I might love it more if I reread it in the future, maybe when I'm more in the mood or mindset for a high poetic register.
February 26, 2016
This was fantastic! Brilliant poems, just outright beautiful imagery, I'd recommend this to any poetry lovers! Definitely worth the TS Eliot prize!
June 12, 2021
An expansive, imaginative and deeply felt collection, Loop of Jade uses a wide lens to look at colonialism, cultural heritage, family relationships, and life in a modern metropolis. The collection begins with a quote from Jorge Luis Borges, in which he itemises a list of the divisions of animals in a certain Chinese encyclopaedia. These categories include "sucking pigs" and "stray dogs", but also much less concrete divisions, such as "drawn with a very fine camel-hair brush" or "frenzied". Howe uses these divisions as starting points for poems that are interspersed throughout the collection. This long sequence uses the absurdism of Borges' quote to capture snapshots from Chinese myth and history, as well as relationships with the self and family. They create moments of magic and surprise within the collection.
Loop of Jade contains a number of long poems about Howe's mother growing up in Hong Kong, being sent to boarding school, and having to fend for herself from a young age. These poems are particularly powerful, capturing the mother's sense of dislocation, the realities of living in a brutal school, and the tenderness the daughter feels towards the mother. Howe's language is rich with detail and empathy, but also cuts to the quick, such as describing her mother's scalp, "the candied rose-petal patches" because she was made to "wash her hair with a green detergent meant for scouring floors".
There are also many beautiful, finely-wrought poems that capture the mood of a place or city, such as The Walled Garden, which describes children leaving a school at dusk, and captures a tenderness as well as a sense of loss,
It is already dark, or darkening –
that sky above the dimming terraced rows
goes far beyond a child’s imagining.
I tread along the backstreet where the cabs
cut through behind the luminous science labs –
their sills of spider plants in yoghurt pots
among the outsize glassware cylinders
like pygmies contemplating monoliths.
When this collection first appeared in 2015, I read parts of it, but it didn't capture my attention. Now, I hugely appreciate Howe's complex approach, and the ways in which she reflects on trauma, giving it space and compassion. This collection is lively and engaging, and also deeply moving: a wonderful achievement.
Loop of Jade contains a number of long poems about Howe's mother growing up in Hong Kong, being sent to boarding school, and having to fend for herself from a young age. These poems are particularly powerful, capturing the mother's sense of dislocation, the realities of living in a brutal school, and the tenderness the daughter feels towards the mother. Howe's language is rich with detail and empathy, but also cuts to the quick, such as describing her mother's scalp, "the candied rose-petal patches" because she was made to "wash her hair with a green detergent meant for scouring floors".
There are also many beautiful, finely-wrought poems that capture the mood of a place or city, such as The Walled Garden, which describes children leaving a school at dusk, and captures a tenderness as well as a sense of loss,
It is already dark, or darkening –
that sky above the dimming terraced rows
goes far beyond a child’s imagining.
I tread along the backstreet where the cabs
cut through behind the luminous science labs –
their sills of spider plants in yoghurt pots
among the outsize glassware cylinders
like pygmies contemplating monoliths.
When this collection first appeared in 2015, I read parts of it, but it didn't capture my attention. Now, I hugely appreciate Howe's complex approach, and the ways in which she reflects on trauma, giving it space and compassion. This collection is lively and engaging, and also deeply moving: a wonderful achievement.
June 12, 2025
the twin lids
of the black lacquer box
open away –
a moonlit lake
ghostly lotus leaves
unfurl in tiers
*
i am looking for a familiar face. there is
some symbol i am striving for. [ . . . ]
wheels brace themselves against the ground
and we are on our way. soon we will reach
the fragrant city. the island rising
into mist, where silver towers forest
the invisible mountain, across that small
span of cerulean sea. i have made
the crossing. [ . . . ]
and so, as we approach,
stop-start, by land, that once familiar scene –
the warm, pthalo-green, south china tide –
i can make out rising mercury
pin-tips, distinct against the blue
as the outspread primaries at the edge
of a bird’s extending wing.
*
you sing to me of machinists – how even in sleep they
sentry a watchmaker lathe, imagining themselves
in strobe-lit celestial factories, holding an ink-bloom pupil
to the closing eye of a vernier scale, balancing
an atom in the aptest calliper. anxious wives watch
their somnolent hands, turning tools to invisible wheels.
*
i’m stood at the north extreme:
the reflecting pool unrolls
a shadow world of clouds &
yews, another far orchard,
enamelled pavilions.
*
stop,
you said, printing
my elbow with a rusty index,
pointing past an ancient
meal’s craquelured dish
to the oyster-crust
at the edge of an unscraped palette –
chewy rainbow, blistered jewels.
of the black lacquer box
open away –
a moonlit lake
ghostly lotus leaves
unfurl in tiers
*
i am looking for a familiar face. there is
some symbol i am striving for. [ . . . ]
wheels brace themselves against the ground
and we are on our way. soon we will reach
the fragrant city. the island rising
into mist, where silver towers forest
the invisible mountain, across that small
span of cerulean sea. i have made
the crossing. [ . . . ]
and so, as we approach,
stop-start, by land, that once familiar scene –
the warm, pthalo-green, south china tide –
i can make out rising mercury
pin-tips, distinct against the blue
as the outspread primaries at the edge
of a bird’s extending wing.
*
you sing to me of machinists – how even in sleep they
sentry a watchmaker lathe, imagining themselves
in strobe-lit celestial factories, holding an ink-bloom pupil
to the closing eye of a vernier scale, balancing
an atom in the aptest calliper. anxious wives watch
their somnolent hands, turning tools to invisible wheels.
*
i’m stood at the north extreme:
the reflecting pool unrolls
a shadow world of clouds &
yews, another far orchard,
enamelled pavilions.
*
stop,
you said, printing
my elbow with a rusty index,
pointing past an ancient
meal’s craquelured dish
to the oyster-crust
at the edge of an unscraped palette –
chewy rainbow, blistered jewels.
April 3, 2016
This is a collection of poetry about going backwards to a place and hoping time follows backward with you. It's a happy arrangement of many different forms and also non-forms. Howe is looking for a place that existed in a 'when', and encourages everything else to fit into its brackets.
Her poems in "Loop of Jade" are a portrait of her experiences as a Chinese and as a line of Chinese both; as a foreigner in both her homes, and as a daughter.
Her poems in "Loop of Jade" are a portrait of her experiences as a Chinese and as a line of Chinese both; as a foreigner in both her homes, and as a daughter.
December 31, 2015
Absolutely loved this one! The poems are as alien and haunting as they are mesmerizing and beautiful - I got completely lost in Howe's world! More please!
October 5, 2024
4.25 stars.
This collection has such a painter's touch. Not just in some of the words Howe used (which I ended up googling, haha), like 'encaustic' and 'sinople', but also the way she writes so vividly, so richly. I loved the narrative thread in this collection so much and the way Howe explores her identity and history.
Some of my favourite lines:
"I counted out the change in Cantonese.
Yut, ye, sam, sei. Like a baby. The numbers
are the scraps that stay with me."
"He lifts his eyes to read
my face. They flicker his uncertainty
as he makes out eyes, the contour of a nose:
half-recognition. These bare moments –
something like finding family."
"I had one of those blurrings – glitch, then focus –
like at a put-off optician's trip, when you realise
how long you've been seeing things wrongly."
"Maybe holding back
is just another kind
of need."
"The easels tilt their flatness to the sky, as
if to chase the sun"
"Language revolves like a ream
of stars."
"I rolled their sounds around my mouth
till they were strange again, like savouring
those New Year candies – small translucent moons
waning on the tongue."
My favourite poems were 'Crossing from Guangdong', '(c) Tame', 'Night in Arizona', 'Islands' and 'Yangtze'. 'Crossing from Guangdong' and 'Islands' I found quite similar and so it was interesting that they're the second poem and the second-to-last poem, respectively. They're much longer than I generally like my poems, but wow. Such beautiful writing – I was completely swept away.
This collection has such a painter's touch. Not just in some of the words Howe used (which I ended up googling, haha), like 'encaustic' and 'sinople', but also the way she writes so vividly, so richly. I loved the narrative thread in this collection so much and the way Howe explores her identity and history.
Some of my favourite lines:
"I counted out the change in Cantonese.
Yut, ye, sam, sei. Like a baby. The numbers
are the scraps that stay with me."
"He lifts his eyes to read
my face. They flicker his uncertainty
as he makes out eyes, the contour of a nose:
half-recognition. These bare moments –
something like finding family."
"I had one of those blurrings – glitch, then focus –
like at a put-off optician's trip, when you realise
how long you've been seeing things wrongly."
"Maybe holding back
is just another kind
of need."
"The easels tilt their flatness to the sky, as
if to chase the sun"
"Language revolves like a ream
of stars."
"I rolled their sounds around my mouth
till they were strange again, like savouring
those New Year candies – small translucent moons
waning on the tongue."
My favourite poems were 'Crossing from Guangdong', '(c) Tame', 'Night in Arizona', 'Islands' and 'Yangtze'. 'Crossing from Guangdong' and 'Islands' I found quite similar and so it was interesting that they're the second poem and the second-to-last poem, respectively. They're much longer than I generally like my poems, but wow. Such beautiful writing – I was completely swept away.
September 18, 2023
I really enjoyed this collection. I think it was very creative and uniquely designed to all fit together. She used a bunch of different forms and structures which I love. I relate to a lot of her descriptions and references to HK which was cool. Didn't fully get all of the poems because the context was at the back but after I read that more of them made sense. I like the themes of childhood, belonging, not-belonging, home, nostalgia and uncertainty.
My favourites were: rain, n. , Night in Arizona, (j) Innumerable, and Islands.
My favourites were: rain, n. , Night in Arizona, (j) Innumerable, and Islands.
June 25, 2020
(i) Frenzied
Maybe holding back
is just another kind
of need. I am a blue plum
in the half-light.
You are a tiger who
eats his own paws.
The day we married
all the trees trembled
as if they were mad –
be kind to me, you said.
Maybe holding back
is just another kind
of need. I am a blue plum
in the half-light.
You are a tiger who
eats his own paws.
The day we married
all the trees trembled
as if they were mad –
be kind to me, you said.
April 15, 2024
Deftly moving between lyric and prose poem, and focusing on the pause before words and the gaps within line breaks just as much as the words themselves.
March 20, 2017
A worthy TS Eliot prizewinner, Loop of Jade is beautifully constructed, with different forms providing refreshment. Her subjects, arising out of her own life and family history and heritage, Chinese, Kong Kong, England, are fascinating (and sometimes horrific - the ashes at the bedside of a birth for smothering girls) There are notes at the back, but far too few for my full appreciation of the work.
November 14, 2022
It's been many years since I first got my hands on a copy of this extraordinarily difficult but ultimately rewarding collection of poetry. Finally marking this as 'read' because with the help of Mary Jean Chan's extraordinarily good essay (https://poetry.openlibhums.org/articl...) on the collection, I think I now have a functional mental map of its workings. Howe plays so many linguistic and cultural games and presents a dense, allusive textural weaving of political and cultural and racial ideas, but her poems which reflect simply on her dual heritages through her mother's story and footsteps are the ones I like most. Nobody who comes from Hong Kong (or has ever been there, in fact) will not be touched by 'Crossing from Guangdong'.
July 11, 2016
Loop of Jade, by Sarah Howe, is the author’s debut poetry collection. It includes explorations of family, history, migration and inheritance. Within each work is an inherent restlessness tinged with longing. History, fable, Chinese culture, and modern life are skilfully woven together.
“Something sets us looking for a place. Old stories tell that if we could only get there, all distances would be erased.”
Howe was born in Hong Kong to an English father and Chinese mother, moving to England as a child. Her experience of living with dual roots seeps through.
The collection contains musings on parents and childhood: a mother’s voice that is firm then almost querulous as demands go unheeded; a father in thrall to the glow created by a remote control. There is curiosity about customs left behind. There are undercurrents of guilt.
A theme returned to several times is the historic treatment of women in the culture of her forbears.
“According to old Chinese custom, the midwife placed near the birthing bed a box of ashes scraped from the hearth so that, if female, the baby might be easily smothered.”
Several poems portray the madness of rulers and the historic treatment of daughters. Men denounced woman, appearing to blame them for existing – “for lust brings many monsters”. There is a suggestion that women may only be regarded as a father would, or as a lover, never as equals.
Travel, changing school and being other are scrutinised. There are musings on art and caligraphy. It is the smallest details of a memory that are recalled.
‘Crocodile’ picks up on a moment in a restaurant:
“She looked down at her napkin, then up; in that second, when no eyes met, it seemed perfectly right that words should be things you have to digest.”
My favourite poem was ‘Loop of Jade’ which ponders an unexpected late night conversation with mother:
“It’s as though she’s been conducting the conversation in her head for some time and decides disconcertingly to include you.”
The daughter is unsure how much of the recollections from childhood can be believed.
I do not read much poetry finding the need for concentration in order to appreciate the nuances a challenge. I did, however, enjoy this collection immensely. The variation in style and length appealed. Senses were pierced, a sharp focus on place and life offered, snapshots of emotion felt.
Loop of Jade won the TS Eliot Prize in 2015. For poetry, a recommended read.
“Something sets us looking for a place. Old stories tell that if we could only get there, all distances would be erased.”
Howe was born in Hong Kong to an English father and Chinese mother, moving to England as a child. Her experience of living with dual roots seeps through.
The collection contains musings on parents and childhood: a mother’s voice that is firm then almost querulous as demands go unheeded; a father in thrall to the glow created by a remote control. There is curiosity about customs left behind. There are undercurrents of guilt.
A theme returned to several times is the historic treatment of women in the culture of her forbears.
“According to old Chinese custom, the midwife placed near the birthing bed a box of ashes scraped from the hearth so that, if female, the baby might be easily smothered.”
Several poems portray the madness of rulers and the historic treatment of daughters. Men denounced woman, appearing to blame them for existing – “for lust brings many monsters”. There is a suggestion that women may only be regarded as a father would, or as a lover, never as equals.
Travel, changing school and being other are scrutinised. There are musings on art and caligraphy. It is the smallest details of a memory that are recalled.
‘Crocodile’ picks up on a moment in a restaurant:
“She looked down at her napkin, then up; in that second, when no eyes met, it seemed perfectly right that words should be things you have to digest.”
My favourite poem was ‘Loop of Jade’ which ponders an unexpected late night conversation with mother:
“It’s as though she’s been conducting the conversation in her head for some time and decides disconcertingly to include you.”
The daughter is unsure how much of the recollections from childhood can be believed.
I do not read much poetry finding the need for concentration in order to appreciate the nuances a challenge. I did, however, enjoy this collection immensely. The variation in style and length appealed. Senses were pierced, a sharp focus on place and life offered, snapshots of emotion felt.
Loop of Jade won the TS Eliot Prize in 2015. For poetry, a recommended read.
April 27, 2016
I found the poems to be a sharply crafted and erudite exploration of duality, of things in transition that are neither one thing nor another. The blurb on the back of the book describes the collection as a “meditation on hybridity, intermarriage and love… an exploration of self and place, of migration and inheritance”. The poems certainly explore Howe’s Chinese roots, but with this goes her dual identity and I was struck by the repetition of the theme of dualism: “the twin lids/of the black lacquer box” in the opening poem; the scholars buried alive with the First Emperor (alive in death); the daughter who becomes a goose; the barnacles that exist in two elements; the state of marriage; the mixed-race child; scientifically created hybrids and the titular “loop of jade itself” which, in moments of damage, is a stand-in for the child it is designed to protect. There are many poems about things that are neither one thing nor another, or are both.
The poems are varied in style and structure, including a number of prose poems and lengthy poem sequences, minimalist lyric poems and word-dense constructions. All are intense and tightly structured, no words go to waste, and benefit from multiple readings, especially those where surface meaning is not immediately obvious.
In my opinion, an excellent collection.
The poems are varied in style and structure, including a number of prose poems and lengthy poem sequences, minimalist lyric poems and word-dense constructions. All are intense and tightly structured, no words go to waste, and benefit from multiple readings, especially those where surface meaning is not immediately obvious.
In my opinion, an excellent collection.
April 25, 2016
Ben Wilkinson wrote in his review for the Guardian :
"It is a shame, then, that too often Howe opts for an unconvincingly heightened and florid register – in “Pythagoras’s Curtain”, “cicadas … cadenza the acousmatic dusk”; “A Painting” lays it on thick with “the oyster-crust … of an unscraped palette – chewy rainbows, blistered jewels” – instead of working harder to write with the difficult clarity and complex simplicity of which she is capable. The most memorable writing in Loop of Jade tends to stem from this latter approach, and nowhere more so than in the book’s title poem."
I agree - some of the poems were beautiful and very evocative, but quite a few went over my head, if I'm being honest. I'll return to them eventually and try to understand some of the more lyrical passages, but I think poetry just has to connect to the reader on a personal, emotional level, as well as an intellectual one and since this was not really the case here for me, I lift my hat in appreciation for the rich images and intruiging themes, but on the other hand, can't give Sarah Howe's first collection more than three stars, at least for now.
*This book fulfils task #11 of the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016: Read a book under 100 pages.
"It is a shame, then, that too often Howe opts for an unconvincingly heightened and florid register – in “Pythagoras’s Curtain”, “cicadas … cadenza the acousmatic dusk”; “A Painting” lays it on thick with “the oyster-crust … of an unscraped palette – chewy rainbows, blistered jewels” – instead of working harder to write with the difficult clarity and complex simplicity of which she is capable. The most memorable writing in Loop of Jade tends to stem from this latter approach, and nowhere more so than in the book’s title poem."
I agree - some of the poems were beautiful and very evocative, but quite a few went over my head, if I'm being honest. I'll return to them eventually and try to understand some of the more lyrical passages, but I think poetry just has to connect to the reader on a personal, emotional level, as well as an intellectual one and since this was not really the case here for me, I lift my hat in appreciation for the rich images and intruiging themes, but on the other hand, can't give Sarah Howe's first collection more than three stars, at least for now.
*This book fulfils task #11 of the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge 2016: Read a book under 100 pages.
August 17, 2016
I got introduced to this book when I met the author at the Hay festival in Wales. A young, 30-something, Chinese-British writer, who carried herself with both grace and immense strength.
As I read these poems, I could imagine her reading them out to me, like a conversation with a close friend, while walking along the Chinese landscape. They capture her personality and experiences immaculately.
The poems are varied in texture and style and cover many difficult topics like women, equality, immigration, etc. The mother-daughter bond is central to many of the poems in Loop of Jade. The name sake poem 'Loop of Jade' and 'Tame' were among my favourites.
As I read these poems, I could imagine her reading them out to me, like a conversation with a close friend, while walking along the Chinese landscape. They capture her personality and experiences immaculately.
The poems are varied in texture and style and cover many difficult topics like women, equality, immigration, etc. The mother-daughter bond is central to many of the poems in Loop of Jade. The name sake poem 'Loop of Jade' and 'Tame' were among my favourites.
January 16, 2016
A fascinating insight into Chinese culture - extremely intricate poetic constructions but placed firmly in the Far Eastern culture. She examines her life and her self in a most energetic and forthright manner, but her choice of words is always perfect.
August 23, 2015
It's very much a first collection but there are a high number of poems that feel like they *had* to be written.
February 29, 2016
Thoroughly enjoyed this book of poetry, some wonderful and interesting images and language. Highly recommend for a read of modern poetry. Lovely journey through the past and China.
February 26, 2016
absolutely stunning and breathtaking, every single fragmented line
January 5, 2025
"...they found God's awe/in each fabulous character..."
Howe structures a number of poems in this collection around a bizarre categorisation of animals described in a Jorge Luis Borges story, an apt reference point considering how her poems explore some of Borges' characteristic obsessions: paradox, cultural difference, language. I particularly enjoyed Howe's poems about returning to Hong Kong, and how she portrays cultural reference points, from Chinese art to the feeling of speaking and hearing Cantonese, that I recognised from personal experience.
But perhaps the most interesting elements of LOOP OF JADE are Howe's meditations on linguistic difference, presented through discussions about everything from Jesuit missionaries to modern Chinese online slang, which remind me somewhat of how J.M. Coetzee's work (particularly Waiting for the Barbarians and Boyhood) engages with the aural and semantic qualities of different words and languages. I look forward to spending some time in the future reading her other anthologised poems and revisiting this collection.
Howe structures a number of poems in this collection around a bizarre categorisation of animals described in a Jorge Luis Borges story, an apt reference point considering how her poems explore some of Borges' characteristic obsessions: paradox, cultural difference, language. I particularly enjoyed Howe's poems about returning to Hong Kong, and how she portrays cultural reference points, from Chinese art to the feeling of speaking and hearing Cantonese, that I recognised from personal experience.
But perhaps the most interesting elements of LOOP OF JADE are Howe's meditations on linguistic difference, presented through discussions about everything from Jesuit missionaries to modern Chinese online slang, which remind me somewhat of how J.M. Coetzee's work (particularly Waiting for the Barbarians and Boyhood) engages with the aural and semantic qualities of different words and languages. I look forward to spending some time in the future reading her other anthologised poems and revisiting this collection.
October 29, 2017
This book wasn't the easiest book of poems to read. The poems were hard to relate to as they weren't about every day issues like some modern collections are. Sarah Howe used these poems to express in words the journey she went on to discover her cultural heritage. These poems talk of stories handed down throughout the generations. There are touches of tradition and belief in this collection. You do get a sense of the writer going on a long journey in this book. You as the reader travel through her poems on that journey with her. On first reading this book I didn't feel connected to any of the poems. I didn't feel any warmth to the poems. Upon reading the poems a second time however I suddenly realised just how good the poems actually were and how much detail was contained within them. In Sarah's words there was beauty. Her poems offered window into another world. A world very different from ours. A mystical world of tradition and strong beliefs. Not only are these poems structurally beautiful the words are so poignant. Each one chosen with care. You can learn a lot from this collection. If this collection doesn't resonate with you on the first read don't give up. There are some real gems within the collection.
February 24, 2020
[rating = B-]
Though my friend has read this, saying that only the first poem really stands out, I would disagree slightly. The first poem does stand out, yes, but other poems like "[There were barnacles]", "rain, n." and "(d) Suckling pigs" are also quite good. This collection follows the author investigating her Chinese heritage the linguistic and verbal oddities of Cantonese/Mandarin. There is a wonderful pairing of Chinese characters to English equivalents and discussion around the language patterns. Miss Howe uses words and description in general quite well; I am impressed by her vivid images that augment as a poem continues. However, Howe is often taken to using obscure words out of nowhere. Often a poem will be flowing nicely and then a weird word will appear dragging the procession to an alarming halt, where either I search up the word or ignore it. Anyways, the author's inclusion of Chinese history interested my Chinese flatmates and the discussion that ensued was actually more interesting than some of the poems themselves (oddly enough). Though this won the T.S. Eliot prize, I think Howe should try to pair down her poems a bit and perhaps make the meaning and (especially the narrative ones) "story" a bit more clear.
Though my friend has read this, saying that only the first poem really stands out, I would disagree slightly. The first poem does stand out, yes, but other poems like "[There were barnacles]", "rain, n." and "(d) Suckling pigs" are also quite good. This collection follows the author investigating her Chinese heritage the linguistic and verbal oddities of Cantonese/Mandarin. There is a wonderful pairing of Chinese characters to English equivalents and discussion around the language patterns. Miss Howe uses words and description in general quite well; I am impressed by her vivid images that augment as a poem continues. However, Howe is often taken to using obscure words out of nowhere. Often a poem will be flowing nicely and then a weird word will appear dragging the procession to an alarming halt, where either I search up the word or ignore it. Anyways, the author's inclusion of Chinese history interested my Chinese flatmates and the discussion that ensued was actually more interesting than some of the poems themselves (oddly enough). Though this won the T.S. Eliot prize, I think Howe should try to pair down her poems a bit and perhaps make the meaning and (especially the narrative ones) "story" a bit more clear.
July 11, 2023
'Earthward' (p10)
I watched the shadowplay
of trees
against the blinds
one October —
in the way sometimes you stare
at a pale face across the bed
so long
you hardly see it —
fingers trembling,
vague as a street
at night, as nature
stripped of accident,
they shook
with a gusting stutter
more restless still
for being not
the thing itself.
***
from '(e) Sirens' (p26)
We ducked under The Pickerel's
painted sign, its coiled fish tilting; over a drink
our talk fell to Roethke, his pickerel smile, and
I had one of those blurrings — glitch, then focus —
like at a put-off optician's trip, when you realise
how long you've been seeing things wrongly.
***
from '(h) The present classification' (p30)
Think how Antigone,
in the play that really belongs to her father, is revealed to live
in a riddle of genealogy.
I watched the shadowplay
of trees
against the blinds
one October —
in the way sometimes you stare
at a pale face across the bed
so long
you hardly see it —
fingers trembling,
vague as a street
at night, as nature
stripped of accident,
they shook
with a gusting stutter
more restless still
for being not
the thing itself.
***
from '(e) Sirens' (p26)
We ducked under The Pickerel's
painted sign, its coiled fish tilting; over a drink
our talk fell to Roethke, his pickerel smile, and
I had one of those blurrings — glitch, then focus —
like at a put-off optician's trip, when you realise
how long you've been seeing things wrongly.
***
from '(h) The present classification' (p30)
Think how Antigone,
in the play that really belongs to her father, is revealed to live
in a riddle of genealogy.
November 24, 2018
4.5 stars
I'm so impressed with Howe's ability to create such a rich environment full of sensory details. (The desk beneath my hand was pocked and battered like the surface of the moon.) She creates vivid scenes full of sights, scents, tactile information. She also blends her familial relationships and the space she occupies as being both Cantonese and English with themes of language, mythology, and nature. She plays around with so many different forms that speed up and slow down the poem, and a great mixture of narrative and lyric. The order the poems are presented allows for comparison and contrast between each and for the poems to speak to one another.
I'm so impressed with Howe's ability to create such a rich environment full of sensory details. (The desk beneath my hand was pocked and battered like the surface of the moon.) She creates vivid scenes full of sights, scents, tactile information. She also blends her familial relationships and the space she occupies as being both Cantonese and English with themes of language, mythology, and nature. She plays around with so many different forms that speed up and slow down the poem, and a great mixture of narrative and lyric. The order the poems are presented allows for comparison and contrast between each and for the poems to speak to one another.
January 5, 2023
Never a particular fan of the modernist, long-sentences-with-line-breaks, funky-words-i-don't-understand form of poetry, I decided to venture out of my pre-20th-century comfort zone and pick up this book by Sarah Howe.
Pleasantly surprised, the collection is packed full of strange stories I don't really understand, references to Chinese culture and mythology, and enough strange words to sustain me a fun evening on dictionary.com .
Whether it'll draw me to pre-octogenarian more often, or if it's just a fluke. Maybe it's not as classic as Dickinson yet, but it IS as confusing as her.
Pleasantly surprised, the collection is packed full of strange stories I don't really understand, references to Chinese culture and mythology, and enough strange words to sustain me a fun evening on dictionary.com .
Whether it'll draw me to pre-octogenarian more often, or if it's just a fluke. Maybe it's not as classic as Dickinson yet, but it IS as confusing as her.
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