{"id":8986,"date":"2017-12-18T12:39:16","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T11:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8986"},"modified":"2017-12-19T09:37:42","modified_gmt":"2017-12-19T08:37:42","slug":"a-field-guide-to-supermarkets-in-singapore-by-samuel-lee-math-paper-press-2016-reviewed-by-natasha-stallard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8986","title":{"rendered":"Samuel Lee, A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore<\/em>, reviewed by\u00a0Natasha Stallard"},"content":{"rendered":"
Samuel Lee, A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore<\/em> (Math Paper Press, $16.00).<\/h5>\n

What\u2019s the difference between a supermarket in Singapore and New Haven, Connecticut? In Samuel Lee\u2019s debut collection \u2018A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore\u2019, the Singaporean poet and Yale student wanders the aisles of his native city along with the organic stores of\u00a0 New Haven.<\/p>\n

The supermarket is a suitable setting for Lee\u2019s themes of desire and alienation. \u2018It\u2019s a world of objects,\u2019 he writes in the poem \u2018Learning To Eavesdrop\u2019, set in a basement food court. Lee observes his fellow consumers, noting how \u2018everyone \/ is a minor character \/ within their own lives\u2019, as they interact with their chosen items:<\/p>\n

a lady holds up a bag of frozen peas
\nto her face\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the melting ice
\nhas grave information to disclose<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Similar to Allen Ginsberg\u2019s 1955 poem \u2018Supermarket in California\u2019, which provides the epitaph for the collection, Lee\u2019s poetry is always \u2018shopping for images\u2019. As the poet drifts through supermarkets, art history classes, apartment blocks, park benches, the Asian Civilisation Museum and a shopping mall submerged by a flood, he often comes face to face with the absurd, such as the opening lines of \u2018Fever Dream\u2019:<\/p>\n

Tired of folding my arms
\nacross my belly, I\u2019ve decided<\/p>\n

to hang from the ceiling
\nin a bloated way<\/p>\n

like a fish awaiting
\nits new life on a lacquer plate<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Again and again, the poet pines for a simpler world and for an escape from globalisation. He laments \u2018the rising price of lentils\u2019 and repeatedly finds himself stuck: fearing death in the shower, frozen like marble in the aisles or trapped on a bus, while oranges, frozen peas, multigrain bread, patchouli-scented candles and \u2018new world wines\u2019 are given a mystical status. Somehow the products know more, and feel <\/em>more, than we do.<\/p>\n

In \u2018Rupture of Fruit Through a Plastic Bag\u2019, an orange belonging to \u2018Madam Lee\u2019 escapes from a plastic bag on a busy bus and tumbles down the aisle:<\/p>\n

Her newly-purchased fruit were grown on trees
\nin California, with the same sun as the one
\nbeating down Sembawang Road<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Oranges are not only escaping plastic bags, they are able to transcend continents and timezones, while Madam Lee remains stuck on the bus. \u00a0Another plastic bag of fruit seems to know more than we do in \u2018First World Grocery Shopping\u2019:<\/p>\n

your plastic bag of lemons blinking in your hands sweating their dew
\ninto dark shapes announcing through their
\nwaxen skin\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 this is a memory\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 we are your songs
\ngo bake a tart<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

As the lemons begin their blinking, sweating and announcing, it is clear they\u2019re granted an intelligence that once belonged to us \u2013 memories and songs \u2013 before dismissing their owner completely, or in their words: \u2018go bake a tart\u2019.<\/p>\n

Lee is part of a new generation of Singapore poets published by the influential Math Paper Press who are forced to navigate the authoritarian city-state\u2019s strict censorship constraints. In her 2016 essay \u2018Chapter and Verse\u2019, Math Paper Press poet Amanda Chong explains poetry\u2019s role in a city with \u2018growing feelings of dislocation, a widening income gap and limited historical consciousness\u2019. \u2018Singaporeans have an affinity for obliqueness, eschewing direct confrontation for more coded expressions,\u2019 Chong writes. \u2018Poetry is seen as the ivory tower of the intelligentsia, its messages safely elevated from the masses. This has created space for narratives that contest State orthodoxy.\u2019<\/p>\n

A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore<\/em>\u00a0is full of these coded expressions. Living between East and West, Lee employs absurdist devices to perform agency \u2013 his \u2018world of objects\u2019 can move more freely than the individual. At the same time, the collection often practices what it fears the most: the lyrical voice is buried under the products of globalisation, trying to find its place between Ikea furniture and a future ecological collapse. Or, as painfully stated in the final lines of \u2018First World Grocery Shopping\u2019: \u2018yes the meek shall inherit the earth \/ and we will celebrate with bespoke cocktails.\u2019<\/p>\n

Natasha Stallard<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Samuel Lee, A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore (Math Paper Press, $16.00). What\u2019s the difference between a supermarket in Singapore and New Haven, Connecticut? In Samuel Lee\u2019s debut collection \u2018A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore\u2019, the Singaporean poet and Yale student wanders the aisles of his native city along with the organic stores […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nSamuel Lee, A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore, reviewed by\u00a0Natasha Stallard - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=8986\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Samuel Lee, A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore, reviewed by\u00a0Natasha Stallard - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Samuel Lee, A Field Guide to Supermarkets in Singapore (Math Paper Press, $16.00). 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