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  the smell of oranges

by jill chan

Skillful and precise, Jill.Chan's first book presents small poems of thought and perception, each carefully cut and shaped into emotional patterns, evoking scents, 'the smell of oranges'. They tell stories: of relationships, madness, and everyday life, where art and world events can often leave you 'unprepared for a knife that has no edge'.

JILL CHAN was born in Manila, Philippines, in 1973. She has a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, migrated to New Zealand when she was 21, and started writing poetry a year later. Her poems have been published in Poetry NZ, Takahe, Trout, Deep South, Spin, and other magazines. She is the editor of the online zine 

Review by Trevor Reeves in Southern Ocean Review

It is good to see the Earl of Seacliff put out so many books of really worthwhile poetry these days. This little book is no exception. Jill Chan was born in the Philippines and lives in Auckland where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. Her work has been published in most New Zealand literary magazines. Her images are of a 'comparative' nature common to Eastern thought. In 'Weight': "Birds become a flight of stairs". Seeking to recall the 'sky down here' on an imperative and mischievous command. Many of these poems are not so much unemotional as intensely interested in everything that is going on. A scientist's view? Partly. Just an outgoing mergence with humankind. In 'Reckoning' "…You want stumbling / lines of friendship to form / to grow strong / and become invisible". This reiteration, reinforcement does not denote a state of peace, satisfaction does. This book is highly recommended as a really good read.

Robin Fry in New Zealand Poetry Society Newsletter September 2003

One can almost smell the oranges on the attractive cover of Jill Chan's first book of poems. The book's three sections match her mother's actions in the title poem in which she peels an orange into sections for her daughter, releasing the fragrance: 1. 'Peeling The Husk'; 2. 'Breaking At The Pressure'; 3. 'The Smell of Oranges'. 'Calligraphy', one of the book's early poems, gives the flavour of Chan's verse:

    The hand sways
    to the eye's music.

    Each stroke 
    a frail trail, 
    a road, a river.

    The mark doesn't stop 
    where the brush leaves off,

    graceful tail
    of a forgotten quiver.

Like the calligrapher's brush, many of the poems leave an impression on the mind after you have finished reading them. They don't give too much away. Some of them are quite enigmatic but full of delicate and beautiful touches ("The way a leaf sways /inside her, she imagines"). In 'First Day' a father awaits a birth "Soon he is cradling tomorrow". 'Weight', a poem in four parts, would like to bring the sky down to earth "in all its wideness".

    Wind is moon- 
    weight thoughts. 
    Birds become a flight 
    of stairs.

    The sudden appearance 
    of myth in the real 
    surprises me. . .

Chan finds words for the unutterable in 'A Death'. "You cannot feel the blood/in the language./Y ou cannot feel your body" and as she meditates on the events of September 11, 2001 in 'The Acts':

    A cut so deep it knows no one. 
    I am unprepared for a knife 
    that has no edge. No sound but 
    a shredding of sky can fill.

In 'You Left' she anatomises emotion with a reality that is physical. "My mind is a flock/of sparrows/ scattering/at the sound/of a gunshot.. .Feet/afraid off walking. "
In some of the relationship poems Chan gives us minute actions and reactions, loaded silences, momentous exchanges where little is said:. "He doesn't say/anything for a while,/lifting the moment/ to iinpenetrable wholeness,/the lay of his face/like sheet music".
One must read between the lines to capture thoughts and events that lie almost at the quantum level where waves and particles alternate.
Jill Chan's first book, The Smell of Oranges, is a pleasure to hold and to read. These poems leave a lingerilig fragrance.

TITLE               the smell of oranges
AUTHOR         Jill Chan
PUBLISHED    2003
CATEGORY    Poetry
FORMAT         Paperback
EXTENT           A5
ISBN                1-86942-028-4
PRICE              NZ  $18

The Smell of Oranges

My mother would ask
if I wanted them cut or peeled.
I'd answer that I wanted them peeled
if only to see her fingers hold them
like clay to be molded.
After peeling their husk,
she would put her thumbs in the centre
and break each into halves;
Later separate the slices, one by one.

I marvel at the flexible skins
pulling away,
not ever breaking at the pressure.