dragon.paper.wind. (龙卷风)
About the Book
dragon.paper.wind. (龙卷风) is a poetry collection that explores mixed race, bilingualism and the complexities of living in a society still entrapped within the CMIO model of race. In this collection, Crispin Rodrigues approaches themes of growing up as a mixed-race person, and draws upon the history of mixed-race depictions in history, literature and popular culture to further illustrate the question of hybridity. From poems about monstrosity to poems about the superheroes, the collection calls back to the history of mixed ethnicities in order to draw a path forward.
dragon.paper.wind. (龙卷风)
Slide to see
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
Reviews
"Crispin Rodrigues’s dragon.paper.wind. forges its own poetics of movement and many-faceted self-exposure. History lives on in the body and in bodily shame. Nonetheless, as Rodrigues writes in ‘comprador’, “i am determined to love this body. its illnesses. its calamities.” These are poems full of attention – a form of love – as much to the body as to the body politic under the duress of global capital. From the imperial conquests of Alfonso de Albuquerque to a Patek Philippe billboard outside a shopping mall in Singapore, nothing escapes Rodrigues's wide-angled gaze. The scope of dragon.paper.wind. is ambitious, but it also drills down into the minutiae of language, drawing out the contradictions in ‘apology’, the swerves between subject and object, and the punning links between Mandarin, Malay and English. The result is a visionary exploration of mixedness as a mode of inquiry." — Will Harris, author of RENDANG and Brother Poem
"In dragon.paper.wind., Crispin Rodrigues dissects his own body as a site for cultural wars. From skin to tongue to organs to umbilical cord, the poet bares his imperfect entirety as an act of recolonisation and self-empowerment in response to a climate of overt and unconscious biases. Embodying an X-ray vision through a superpower lens, he lasers through societal hypocrisy and habituated behaviour acted upon towards minority citizens. Exquisitely tender, honest and clear-eyed, this book reveals the poet’s turmoil of being mixed race in Singapore and his attempts at claiming back his sutured humanity. Bold, polyglottal and earnest, this is a watershed collection about identity in SingLit." — Grace Chia, author of How to Hunger and Cordelia
In unravelling dragon.paper.wind – the title is a literal translation of the Chinese term for cyclones (and perchance a reference to one of Taiwanese musician Jay Chou’s hit singles?) – one hears, no, feels a new, visceral, pulsating music rushing up. In his first three collections, Crispin Rodrigues assiduously tests the waters, but here, his best, most audacious adventure yet, he has broken through. It’s both his most conceptual and oddly most “freeing” work thus far, in theme, structure and metaphor. The poems are most incandescent when revelling in that strange music, composed not from logic but from an ironic abandonment of ego. Sure, you could study the mechanics, but why not just taste the delicious joy these words ooze, buoyed along in a whirlwind sweep of English, Chinese and Malay phraseology, and fascinating portraits dunk in genealogy, fantasy and archival deep-dive? It’s a fulfilment of peripatetic impulses – to seek answers, to find beauty and refuge in the interstices of race, language and family, and to forge one’s own peculiar identity. So, who am I? This is me, says Crispin, in an often glorious, sometimes funny, and absolutely honest admission that he hasn’t quite figured everything, let alone himself, out yet. — Yeow Kai Chai, One to the Dark Tower Comes (2022 Singapore Literature Prize)
In this moving fourth collection, Crispin Rodrigues probes the prejudices of a society in which biracial identities remain mostly understood in reductive terms, all the while birthing new modes of being through the poet's creative use of code switching and multilingualism within these powerful and formally dexterous poems. Rodrigues invites the reader to look again at the myriad of ways in which history and politics shape the realities of the self, all the while suggesting linguistic hybridity as a necessary path towards forging new ways of speaking. — Mary Jean Chan, author of Flèche and Bright Fear
Recommended Books
Paperback (Pre-orders ship after 26 April)
$24.00 SGD
Delicious Hunger
Paperback (2-3 weeks shipping)
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Why Palestine?: Reflections From Singapore
Paperback
$22.00 SGD
Sister Snake
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
E-book
$20.00 SGD
Ayam Buah Keluak and the Art of Writing: a memoir on living creatively
Paperback
$22.00 SGD
E-book
$22.00 SGD
Malayland
Poetry
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
womb song
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Patient History
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
dragon.paper.wind. (龙卷风)
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
E-book
$19.00 SGD
The Orchid Folios
Paperback
$16.82 SGD
E-book
$16.82 SGD
parsetreeforestfire
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Intruder
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Giving Ground
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
Paperback (autographed)
$19.00 SGD
E-book
$19.00 SGD
Floating Clouds Beyond The Elastic Limit
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
Paperback (autographed)
$19.00 SGD
E-book
$19.00 SGD
A Flying Crystal
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
A Walk With My Pig
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
A Bad Girl's Book of Animals
Paperback
$16.82 SGD
E-book
$16.82 SGD
GAZE BACK
Paperback
$5.61 SGD $9.35 SGD
(Imperfect) Unhomed
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Paperback
$21.00 SGD
Picking off new shoots will not stop the spring: Witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar (1988-2021)
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Some Say, A Tapir
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Farquhar
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
Poetry Moves: An Anthology of Poetry
Paperback
$20.56 SGD
Contour: A Lyric Cartography of Singapore
Paperback
$28.04 SGD
To Gather Your Leaving: Asian Diaspora Poetry from America, Australia, UK and Europe
Paperback
$14.00 SGD
E-book
$14.00 SGD
a tiny space
Paperback
$17.00 SGD
E-book
$17.00 SGD
Right of the Soil
Paperback
$28.00 SGD
E-book
$28.00 SGD
Common Life: Drawings and Poems
Paperback
$25.00 SGD
UnFree Verse
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Lost Bodies: Poems between Portugal and Home
Paperback
$18.70 SGD
This Is Not A Safety Barrier: An Anthology of Poetry & Photography
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
I Found A Bone and Other Poems
Paperback
$12.00 SGD
E-book
$12.00 SGD
Me Migrant
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Phedra
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
Spomenik
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
Bitter Punch
Paperback
$10.00 SGD
Singapore Notebook & Blessed Isle
Paperback
$25.00 SGD
UNION : 15 Years of Drunken Boat, 50 Years of Writing From Singapore
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
Ars Poetica for the Day
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
Do You Live In?
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
The Wrong/Wrung Side of Love
Paperback
$28.00 SGD
A Gathering of Themes
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.00 SGD
Teaching Poetry To Adolescents: A Teacher's Guide to Little Things
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
Never Before—50 Essential Poems / 不可预期—诗精50首
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
SG Poems 2017-2018
Out of stock
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
A Crackle of Flames, A Circle of Rainbow
Out of stock
Paperback
$11.21 SGD
Love at the Gallery
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
SG Poems 2015-2016
Out of stock
Paperback
$14.00 SGD
Pilgrimage
Out of stock
Paperback
$9.35 SGD
Unhomed
Out of stock
Paperback
$9.35 SGD
Crossing Universes
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
一首诗的时间 2015
Out of stock
Paperback
$10.00 SGD
Right of the Soil (Chapbook)
Out of stock
Paperback
$13.00 SGD
Finding Francis: A Poetic Adventure
Out of stock
Paperback
$14.95 SGD
Footfalls in the Rain
Out of stock
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
Light is like water
Out of stock
Attunement
Is life hustling you out of tune? As the week roars by, we invite you to a slice of attunement penned lovingly by our authors, friends, and yours truly. Freshly delivered weekly with care. Intimacy guaranteed. Read selected letters below.
Magical, luminous things
Feb 19, 2022
I have flown across an ocean this week. This still sounds surreal to say.
Read more
No negotiation for blood debt
Feb 14, 2022
The Burmese language resistance poetry is deeply embedded in the country’s colonial past. When mo...
Read more
Burning holes in the darkness
Feb 7, 2022
Poets killed in broad daylight, writers tortured and maimed. I wonder if their ghosts watch on fr...
Read more
