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Featured Poet: Jennifer Wong


Eyewear is glad to revive its weekly featured poets series.  This overcast Sunday in London, it is good to welcome Jennifer Wong, pictured.  A London-based poet originally from Hong Kong, her poems have appeared in magazines such as Frogmore Papers, Orbis, Iota, Warwick Review, Coffeehouse Poetry, Aesthetica, Mascara, New Writer, Strong Verse, and Open Wide Magazine. Her poetry collection, Summer Cicadas, was published by Chameleon Press and she is working on her second collection. Her poem 'Myth' was long-listed for the Plough Prize. She read English at Oxford and took an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. She sometimes collaborates with visual artists. Her second collection will be published by Salmon Poetry.



The Last Monologues

I.

This is the black forest of my heart,
this is my circumference.

See snow patches and brown leaves on the grass,
snow and orphaned leaves without a home.

Do you see what clutches the soil?
And what’s that quivering in your bag?

The window is left open.
Long evenings in the winter chill.

II.

I close the door behind me and go
(I ask the door to be quiet).
I’m not stupid as Orpheus.
I never look back.

It’s good to breathe like nobody,
trample freely in my laced boots.
I kick up as much earth as I could.

III.

I stop by a small stream.
I open my bag:
car keys, phone, pens and vitamins.
I send them off.
They obey the water and dissolve.

IV.

Nothing holds me back.
I’m changing my season for good:
look the sea-gazing palm trees,
all swinging hammocks
and paradise birds singing my name.


poem by Jennifer Wong; published online with permission of the author
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