Rain in Plural is the much-anticipated fourth collection of poetry by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, who has been praised by The Rumpus as “a master of musicality and enlightening allusions.” In the wholly original world of these new poems, Sze-Lorrain addresses both private narratives and the overexposed discourse of the polis, using silence and montage, lyric and antilyric, to envision what she calls “creating between liberties.” With a moral precision embracing us without eschewing I, she rethinks questions of citizenship, the selections of sensory memory, and, by extension, the tether of word and image to the actual. She writes, “I accept the truth in newspapers / by holding the murder of my friends against my chest. // To each weather forecast I give thanks: / merci for every outdated // dusk/dawn.” Agrippina the Younger, Franz Kafka, Bob Dylan, a butoh performance, an unnamed Raku tea bowl—each has a place here. Made whole by time and its alteration in timelessness, synchrony, coincidences, and accidents, Rain in Plural beautifully reveals an elegiac yet ever-evolving inner life.
Awards and Recognition
- Shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, Arrowsmith Press
"A splendid follow-up to the LJ best-booked The Ruined Elegance with broader appeal."—Library Journal, starred review
"Fiona Sze-Lorrain’s fourth book of original poems, Rain in Plural . . . uses language to uncover questions of citizenship, memory, and image. We love Sze-Lorrain’s lush, musical sensibilities. . . . If you’ve enjoyed her work in the past, you’re sure to enjoy Rain in Plural, too!"—Lantern Review
"The poetry in her newest collection, Rain in Plural, is neither a mélange nor a mosaic of cultural, intellectual and linguistic referents, but a deeply intertwined layering . . . Sze-Lorrain seems at home and a visitor everywhere, connecting dots across cultures and continents, dipping into languages and cuisines. If there is a globalized future for English-language literature, this is perhaps an early glance at it."—Asian Review of Books, Peter Gordon
"Provocative . . . lyrical. . . . These lovely poems slide between equally compelling realities that don’t seem to belong together but ultimately unify and bring sense, compassion, and beauty."—Kyle Torke, Colorado Review
"The collection reveals the inner-life of a truly remarkable poet. Radiantly intelligent, Sze-Lorrain’s work is as musically intoxicating as the zheng she plays with precision . . . Rain in Plural is a collection of poetry deserving of multiple reads in the quietude of soft light over one’s left shoulder."—Michael Escoubas, Quill & Parchment
"Rain in Plural is a collection that quietly insists on your attention."—Lisa Higgs, The Adroit Journal
"There is something for every reader in Rain in Plural . . . Rain in Plural is an invitation to a myriad of entanglements with the inner life, and what grows from the seeds planted there."—Hannah VanderHart, EcoTheo Review
"Rain in Plural is a lush and intimate study of the porous boundaries of personal life. Inflected with quietude and hardened by rigorous examination, Sze-Lorrain’s careful eye ranges over landscapes both within and outside the self, mining language for new entry points."—Yaddo News
"Fiona Sze-Lorrain's much-awaited fourth poetry collection, Rain in Plural, is a polyphonic gathering of wide-ranging themes. . . . Sze-Lorrain’s work allows us to grasp, for a moment, the points of contact that translation perpetually seeks. Therein lies the philosophical importance of Rain in Plural: eschewing equivalence, Sze-Lorrain crafts a poetics of border spaces and contact zones."—Lara Norgaard, Singapore Unbound
"Such unexpected juxtapositions lend the collection a quirky vividness. Though consecutive lines and stanzas often touch on drastically different subjects, the poems still offer a sense of wholeness. . . . Regardless of her subject, Sze-Lorrain manages to be inventive and original without sacrificing authenticity and musical balance."—Maggie Wang, Harvard Review
"The poems in this very good collection, even those that are slight on the page, have an epic, Yeatsian sweep to them, a grandeur of statement found in a lightness of touch."—Dominic Leonard, Poetry London
"Dazzling Fiona Sze-Lorrain refreshes our sense of time in her newest volume, the marvelously manifold Rain in Plural. Here, where the sea can be kept in a box, an airport has a skeleton and a nervous system, and both a wedding and heart surgery are scheduled 'to put the past behind,' she also transforms our sense of space. As if this poet were employing watercolor techniques, Sze-Lorrain builds up her drolly profound images. From 'a favorite samurai' to a dictator's dog, in the brilliant polycultural world she conjures we're suddenly everywhere at once, making Rain in Plural a book to absorb as one absorbs a vision."—Molly Peacock, author of The Analyst: Poems and Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems
"Rain in Plural is a cause for celebration. In recent years, when the world has become too wearying for me, I’ve looked to the poetry of Fiona Sze-Lorrain for her inventive lyricism and her radiant intelligence. There is an exquisite music in this work that is unlike anything else in contemporary poetry. The elegant psychological narratives of these poems can be both troubling and consoling, yet they emerge as compellingly as one’s own suppressed dreams. Sze-Lorrain’s poetry exists in an artistic landscape that echoes Antonioni’s sensual intellectual acuity as well as Eric Rohmer’s bemused tenderness. Rain in Plural is a collection of glorious and absolute brilliance."—David St. John, author of The Last Troubadour: New and Selected Poems
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