Moving House

Theophilus Kwek

• Publisher: Carcanet Poetry
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781784109639
• eBook ISBN: 9781784109646
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Asian Poetry
• Index: Literature

Theophilus Kwek's first UK collection is concerned with the individual and the collective stories that become history. The poems set out from formative moments in the poet's memory, to pivotal moments in the colonial past of Southeast Asia, and finally the political upheavals of the present. Hospitality, precarity, migration – these are some of the themes that recur as the poet makes his own journey from Singapore to Europe and back again. Moving House moves on a big time and space map, from Icelandic tales to the Malayan Emergency, and more contemporary dramas. From the perspective of a Chinese Singaporean shaped by the collective traditions and histories described in this book, writing in Britain, the poems model a sense of openness on the space of the page.

31

STRANGERS DROWNING

‘[We learned] that a Singapore navy patrol boat had intercepted a sinking refugee boat but left them to drown […] The government later blamed the young conscript officer in command of the boat.’

— Resettlement officer; Canadian High Commission, 1979

Now what returns is this: the dread

of Tuesday mornings at the neighbourhood pool,

zipped to the throat in a new suit tightening

with the slow plunge of the poolside stair

and you, cajoled, abashed, but pushed

nonetheless to a certain fate, alive

as the water’s vice rises past knees

chest shoulders to seal around

your eyes, throw the world off-whack. Only

eleven, and already willing to believe

in nothing but the woman who stands

on dry land, with a towel and thermos yelling

your name, her voice a lost song, the prayer

your mouth mouths. For air. For air.

*

32Two people are drowning: your aged mother

and a child you have never seen. There

is room in the boat for one, no questions.

Who will you rescue? The philosopher’s

features are kind, inscrutable. Somewhere

a window closes. Another opens.

*

Last one to put your head underwater, still

kicking the wet ledge, you swallow

as the guard kneels to prise your fingers off.

How you envy the others! Their luck

and their quick beauty, oh what it would mean

not to have the hour undone

by a dream of drowning! But envy will not

loose your welded grip. Hauled stiff-limbed

to life each week, the wall’s brute hold

leaves your fingers cut. You show them off

at school to those for whom the dread

is still too much. How brave, they are full

of praise. How clever! Your feet feel

again the rough tiles beneath them.

*

33Now think again: this time there is only

the child. Speck in the eye, small infinity,

defying the curved sea. There is no choice.

We must save her, yes? The philosopher asks

with a gleam. What then to hear of the same

but multiplied, at a distance, and unnamed?

*

Woken with twice the urgency, the men

fall quickly into routine, muster

where the gunboats, tarred and polished,

have long been waiting. With deft ease they

fill their stations, you among them

chosen for your sharp eye to man the watch,

knowing only to impress and not knowing

better. S...

Table of contents

• TITLE PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• WITNESS
• PROGNOSIS
• CHINESE WHISPERS
• MY GRANDFATHER VISITS PYONGYANG
• REQUIEM
• THE GAMBLE
• MAGDALENE
• THE DANCE
• DEAD MAN’S SAVINGS WON’T GO TO WIFE
• BLUE
• HUANG XUEYING MEETS HER MOTHER IN THE UNDERWORLD
• THE PASSENGER
• WESTMINSTER
• OCCURRENCE
• MONOLOGUES FOR NOH MASKS
• 24.6.16
• STRANGERS DROWNING
• THE WEEK IT HAPPENS
• WHAT IT’S LIKE
• THE FALL
• H.
• HO 213/926
• CAMERATA
• THE CRABS
• THE WAY LIGHT WORKS
• FIRST EASTER
• LUCKY
• MY LOVE,
• GUNUNG
• OPERATION THUNDERSTORM
• WAYS OF WALKING
• MARGINALIA
• SOPHIA
• THE DIFFERENCE
• TRANSFORMATIONS
• GRAVITY
• EVA
• LOCH NA FUAICHE
• NOTES ON A LANDSCAPE
• WHAT FOLLOWS
• ROAD CUTTING AT GLANMIRE
• PULSE
• THE QUESTIONING
• LOVE POEM
• FIFTY-ONE
• NOCTURNAL
• FINAL CUT
• MOVING HOUSE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• COPYRIGHT