Review: Magnolia 木蘭
Reviewed by: Renee Liang
Author:
Nina Mingya Powles
Publisher:
Seraph Press
ISBN:
9780995108257
Date Published:
November 2020
Pages:
84
Format:
Paperback
RRP:
$30.00
The search for identity isn’t a linear quest. Rather, it feels more like a wandering, peering through dimly lit doorways, pausing to marvel at rare moments of illumination before plunging into the shadows once again. Magnolia 木蘭 perfectly encapsulates the wonder and confusion of Powles’ journeying, both physically and emotionally, as she searches for herself.
The three parts of her collection, subtly yet precisely constructed, mirror dramatic structure. Part I sees Powles sifting through movies, books and artworks, questioning the various identities and behavioural expectations imposed on her as she leaves girlhood and journeys into adulthood. The superficiality of the Disney verson of Chinese folk hero Mulan is questioned, interspersed with remembered comments:
once a guy told me mixed girls are the most beautiful/ because
they aren't really white / but they aren’t really Asian either
When she leaves Aotearoa to learn Mandarin in Shanghai, Powles discovers a new environment which she experiences primarily through touch and taste. This shifts her into a new way of “seeing” the world and Powles’ gift for tactile writing brought the saliva rising to my mouth:
I dip once in vinegar, twice in soy sauce and eat while the
woman rolls pieces of dough into small white moons that fit
inside her palm.
Natural imagery and transformation are features of Powles’ poetry: maps become flowers; egg yolks suns. Flowers transform into ash and then the dust of dead children. There is a tensile strength behind the apparent gentleness and Powles is not afraid to veer into sudden violence or anger.
Rain in all its forms – humid mist, light drizzle, sudden downpours – saturates this collection, but in particular part II, when Powles’ diplomat mother Wen appears as a guide to her rediscovery of Mandarin. This was a language that Powles spoke as a child then lost while growing up in Aotearoa. Powles explains that her mother’s name character is made up of the characters for rain and language but together mean multicoloured clouds. In a single eight-part poem titled Field Notes On A Downpour, Powles playfully pulls apart the pictographs and sounds she is learning, wondering at a language that is built on pictures: each Chinese character unravelling into story.
The final part is the most powerful and also the most poignant as Powles explores her other heritage languages: Hakka, English and finally, haltingly, Te Reo Māori. In Mixed Girls’ Hakka Phrasebook, she details the stilted phrases she has learnt before describing all the things she’d like to say but can't. As someone who has struggled on the language and identity journey myself (surely everyone has?), I found myself silently shouting, “me too!”
Subtle, visceral and gently powerful, this is a collection to be treasured in small tasty gulps. It is no wonder that this debut collection has been shortlisted for multiple awards internationally, including the Forward Prize (UK), the upcoming Ockham Awards (NZ) and most recently announced the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize (UK), and Powles herself has already received many awards. Luckily, a number of further works in poetry and non fiction are about to be served – I’m looking forward to the feast.
Reviewed by Renee Liang
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