#YISHREADS April 2023

For National Poetry Month, Ng Yi-Sheng rambles through his eclectic library for poetry from different times and places.

ReviewJee KohApril 28, 2023Ng Yi-ShengComment

“Ode to My Prepubescent Penis” and Other Poems

In these three new poems, Miguel Barretto Garcia meditates wryly and agonizingly on masculinity and sexuality, and the penetrating influence of parents on both.

PoetryJee KohApril 28, 2023Miguel Barretto GarcíaComment

“Grandmother’s Room” and Other Poems

Sceptical and loving, these three poems by Faiz Ahmad inquire into the nature of constancy and change.

PoetryJee KohApril 21, 2023Faiz Ahmad Comments

Getting Under the Skin

“The Korean-American individual finds themselves mapped onto a kinship network, through which desires are passed down, misplaced, and only very rarely reconfigured,” in Yoon Choi’s Skinship (US: Vintage Books, 2022), reviewed by Aileen Liang.

ReviewJee KohApril 14, 2023Aileen LiangComment

“Body Parts Sonnet” and “Found Poetry in Triptych”

“Where to look after a semblance of you?” Innas Tsuroiya asks in these two sensuous poems and finds answers in the sentient world.

PoetryJee KohApril 7, 2023Innas TsuroiyaComment

in all the places i could not find you

Is it a chapbook or a map? Or both? Haunting work by Hamid Roslan.

PoetryJee KohApril 1, 2023Hamid RoslanComment

Lazy Susan

How does a family cope, economically and socially, with the loss of employment? In this moving story by Norie Suzuki, a daughter looks back at a precarious time in her family’s past.

FictionJee KohMarch 31, 2023Norie Suzuki Comment

#YISHREADS March 2023

For Women’s History Month (March), Ng Yi-Sheng trains his focus on women readers. And men should read these books too.

ReviewJee KohMarch 31, 2023Ng Yi-ShengComment

Ruling Parties

Why are so many powerful people such assholes? Kirsten Han reviews Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us by Brian Klaas for some answers from political science.

ReviewJee KohMarch 24, 2023Kirsten HanComment

Blooming Beyond the Event Horizon

In their review of Paul Tran’s All the Flowers Kneeling, Jack Xi shows that Tran’s project is “not to write about survival as purely triumphant or as an ending they have already reached but rather to reflect their real, ongoing journey.”

Review, PoetryJee KohMarch 17, 2023Jack XiComment

Saint of Disappointment

“I have swords in my mouth,” proclaims debut poet Teddy Jericho Cheng, and in these two poems, they answer why.

PoetryJee KohMarch 10, 2023Teddy Jericho ChengComment

Horizon I: An Origin Story

What is the sea? Nicola Sebastian, a writer, surfer, and National Geographic Explorer, asks. The answers are both terrifying and consoling.

FictionJee KohMarch 3, 2023Nicola SebastianComment

#YISHREADS February 2023

In response to N. K. Jemisin’s question “How Long ‘til Black Future Month?” Ng Yi-Sheng reviews five vital works of Black/African speculative fiction.

ReviewJee KohFebruary 24, 2023Ng Yi-ShengComment

Island End

On the Floating Home of the Lost, Mama wishes to speak to Singa and Merlion, with unexpected results. A new story by Kevin Martens Wong.

FictionJee KohFebruary 24, 2023Kevin Martens WongComment

Against Annihilation

Vice-royal-ties by Julia Wong Kcomt, translated by Jennifer Shyue, works against the annihilation and dilution of human experience, as reviewer Niccolo Rocamora Vitug discovers.

ReviewJee KohFebruary 17, 2023Niccolo Rocamora VitugComment

A Handful of Land

In Ayesha Khan’s new story, “A Handful of Land,” a very strange child is born to a village.

FictionJee KohFebruary 10, 2023Ayesha Khan Comments

We Are Always Building

In her review of Ann Ang’s Burning Walls for Paper Spirits (Singapore: Pagesetters, 2021), Mia Ayumi Malhotra appraises the poetry collection and its delicate still-life sketches of construction scaffolding, potted pandans, and laundry-strung balconies.

ReviewJee KohFebruary 3, 2023Mia Ayumi MalhotraComment