On reviewing, and being reviewed

The North, published by The Poetry Business, which I’ve written for since 2016!

Among writers, there’s often talk of what it will take to build a stronger ‘critical culture’ in the Singapore literary scene, or – coming hand-in-hand with it – a ‘more discerning readership’. Many of us think that having more literary blogs, journals, and zines is the answer. These platforms would not only publish more new work, but also more reviews of and commentary on Singapore writing, allowing for a more fertile exchange of ideas. Of course, more platforms would also require more readers and writers, and, by the logic of ‘iron sharpening iron’, raise the bar for a mature and informed readership.

The question that often follows is, ‘but who might be trusted to write a negative – or even a balanced – review, in what many of us experience as a close-knit lit community?’ As someone who reviews new Singapore writing on a fairly regular basis (see ‘Prose’!), I’m as guilty of erring on the side of friendly praise as the next reviewer. But as someone who’s also had the privilege of seeing both sides of the editorial process, from my time at The Oxford Culture Review and Asymptote to more recent positions at Oxford Poetry, The Kindling and the Asian Books Blog, I think there’s plenty of room for a good critic to extend the common graces of empathy, decency, and fairness, in a way that can deepen and develop how we all read (and write, or talk, about reading).

This came home to me this past week when the latest, gorgeous issue of The North arrived in the mail, a magazine that I’ve been contributing to – initially as a poet, but by and large as a reviewer – for the past five years. I’m fortunate to appear twice in this issue: with my review of new collections by Carolyn Forché and Deborah Landau, and also with a review of my own book, Moving House, by Matthew Paul. The North regularly publishes a wide selection of brilliant poets, and this issue contains some lovely pieces by David Constantine, Alison Brackenbury, and my publisher, Michael Schmidt.

I can’t say my excitement wasn’t slightly dampened when I flipped to Matthew’s review of Moving House which was, well… balanced. The first paragraph, which judged that the book’s opening poem ‘veers into abstraction which aims for profundity’, wasn’t too promising, and the rest of the review maintained much the same assessment. But as I read on, I found myself making a mental note of his shrewd observations (on my use of form, for instance), and also quite moved by the care with which he considered poems like ‘Strangers Drowning’ and ‘The Fall’. Some of his comments also resonated with me, as things that I’d noticed about my own writing and wanted to improve on:

The first paragraph of Matthew Paul’s review in The North…

After I’d read the review again – more appreciatively this time – and put it aside, I started to think more carefully too about my own response to it. I often tell people that after my poems are published, I don’t see them as ‘mine’ any more: like children, they’ve come of age, flown the coop, and now belong fully in the world of their readers. And I, too, come to see my own poems as a reader, rather than as their source. So, some disappointment was probably natural (The North is, after all, a journal I love!) but approaching my own poems now from a distance, I’m grateful that a fellow reader has not only paid them such close attention, but shown me too a better way of reading and knowing them.

I don’t know Matthew, though I admire his work as a poet and critic, and perhaps that distance allowed him to write with greater honesty: if so, I’m genuinely thankful for it. Even more so, I’m thankful for the existence (at least in the UK, where Moving House was published) of a dynamic ecosystem of reading and reviewing which, though not without its flaws, lends writers what we need most: a mirror to themselves.

So where do we go from here, then? If you’re hoping to make a start with reviewing – or even if you’re a seasoned critic – there are some things we can all think about. First, will you show empathy, by trying your best to see the author’s work (and world) through their own lenses, and to first understand their project on its own terms, before balancing this against your own yardstick of meaning (or beauty)? This may also require helping readers, who may know the authors work only through your review of it, to understand its context and purpose. Second, will you show decency, by wanting the best for the author, and hence writing in such a way that helps them see their own blindspots, or remedy gaps in their craft? And finally, will you show fairness, by approaching the work with the honesty and balance that every subjective and human work of art deserves, neither damning with faint praise, nor putting it down for clickbait?

These are common graces, certainly, that extend beyond reviewing, into the public space we all inhabit. No better way to practice them than in this world of words.