Chan

By Hannah Lowe

Chan is a mercurial name, representing the travellers and shape-shifters of the poems in this collection. It is one of the many nicknames of Hannah Lowe’s Chinese-Jamaican father, borrowed from the Polish émigré card magician Chan Canasta. It is also a name from China, where her grandfather’s story begins. Alongside these figures, there’s Joe Harriott, the Jamaican alto saxophonist, shaking up 1960s London; a cast of other long-lost family; and a ship full of dreamers sailing from Kingston to Liverpool in 1947 on the SS Ormonde.

Hannah Lowe’s second collection follows her widely acclaimed debut, Chick, which took readers on a journey round her father, a gambler who disappeared at night to play cards or dice in London’s old East End to support his family.

‘Here is a poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic. These are poems springing from the page with vitality, rue and insight. Her elegies are restrained and devastating. An extraordinary debut.’ – Penelope Shuttle on Chick

‘This is an outstanding, unputdownable first collection’ – John Glenday on Chick

‘An unforgettable book. In an age where blurby superlatives compete on debut book covers, this one has an edge: it is about someone, namely the poet’s late father, from whose name it takes its title… “Say”, which exploits understatement to the full, is remarkable, and heartbreaking.’ – Helena Nelson, Magma.

‘Hannah Lowe’s debut collection is wonderful… a book which deals plainly and honestly with big emotions and tender, dramatic personal scenes.’ – Declan Ryan, Ambit

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
• Release date: Jun 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781780372846

Hannah Lowe

Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. She has worked as a teacher of literature and creative writing, recently completed her work on a PhD, and is now a lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston University. Her pamphlet The Hitcher (The Rialto, 2011) was widely praised. Her first book-length collection Chick (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry, and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. This was followed by two pamphlets, R x (sine wave peak, 2013) and Ormonde (Hercules Editions, 2014), and her family memoir Long Time No See (Periscope, 2015). She also read from Long Time, No See on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week in 2015. Her second full-length collection, Chan, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016. She is the current poet in residence at Keats House and a commissioned writer on the Colonial Countryside Project with the University of Leicester and Peepal Tree Press.

Book preview

HANNAH LOWE

CHAN

Chan is a mercurial name, representing the travellers and shape-shifters of the poems in this collection. It is one of the many nicknames of Hannah Lowe’s Chinese-Jamaican father, borrowed from the Polish émigré card magician Chan Canasta. It is also a name from China, where her grandfather’s story begins. Alongside these figures, there’s Joe Harriott, the Jamaican alto saxophonist, shaking up 1960s London; a cast of other long-lost family; and a ship full of dreamers sailing from Kingston to Liverpool in 1947 on the SS Ormonde.

Hannah Lowe’s second collection follows her widely acclaimed debut, Chick, which took readers on a journey round her father, a gambler who disappeared at night to play cards or dice in London’s old East End to support his family.

‘Here is a poet with a commanding style; her voice is entirely her own, both rich and laconic. These are poems springing from the page with vitality, rue and insight. Her elegies are restrained and devastating. An extraordinary debut.’ – Penelope Shuttle on Chick

‘This is an outstanding, unputdownable first collection’ – John Glenday on Chick

‘An unforgettable book. In an age where blurby superlatives compete on debut book covers, this one has an edge: it is about someone, namely the poet’s late father, from whose name it takes its title… Say, which exploits understatement to the full, is remarkable, and heartbreaking.’ – Helena Nelson, Magma

‘Hannah Lowe’s debut collection is wonderful… a book which deals plainly and honestly with big emotions and tender, dramatic personal scenes.’ – Declan Ryan, Ambit

Cover painting: Joe Harriott by Luisa Fuster Vercher

HANNAH LOWE

CHAN

for Richard and Rory

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Some of these poems or earlier versions of them have appeared in the following publications: Compass Magazine, In, Jamaica Journal, Magma, Morning Star, London Magazine, Poetry, Poetry London, The Rialto, Rising and The Yellow Nib.

The poem sequence Ormonde has been published in a chapbook, Ormonde, with accompanying visual and archive material (Hercules Editions, 2014).

My sincere thanks and gratitude to Mimi Khalvati and members of her workshop; and to Bill Herbert, Betony Lowe, Kenneth ‘Honey’ Lowe, Vici MacDonald, Richard Price, James Procter, Alan Robertson and Tammy Yoseloff.

I am also very grateful to Newcastle University, the University of the West Indies and The Chinese Benevolent Association of Jamaica for their time and support.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

WHAT I PLAY IS OUT THE WINDOW!

If You Believe: Ribs

Sax I

Sax II

Cherokee

Pinewood Suite, unrecorded, 1958

Quintet at a Party, 1960

Song for Shake

Partita, 1968

What Is and