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Biographical note
Mary Jean Chan grew up in Hong Kong and studied at Swarthmore College, the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway, University of London. Their debut pamphlet, A Hurry of English, was selected as the 2018 Poetry Book Society Summer Pamphlet Choice. In 2017, Chan's poem '//' was shortlisted for the 2017 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. They are a Ledbury Poetry Critic, editor of Oxford Poetry, advisory board member at the Poetry Translation Centre and member of the Folio Prize Academy. They are a Lecturer in Creative Writing (Poetry) at Oxford Brookes University and live in London.WINNER OF THE COSTA POETRY AWARD
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION
Flèche (the French word for 'arrow') is an offensive technique commonly used in fencing, a sport of Mary Jean Chan's young adult years, when they competed locally and internationally for their home city, Hong Kong. This cross-linguistic pun presents the queer, non-white body as both vulnerable ('flesh') and weaponised ('flèche'), and evokes the difficulties of reconciling one's need for safety alongside the desire to shed one's protective armour in order to fully embrace the world.
Central to the collection is the figure of the poet's mother, whose fragmented memories of political turmoil in twentieth-century China are sensitively threaded through the book in an eight-part poetic sequence, combined with recollections from Chan's childhood. As complex themes of multilingualism, queerness, psychoanalysis and cultural history emerge, so too does a richly imagined personal, maternal and national biography. The result is a series of poems that feel urgent and true, dazzling and devastating by turns.
WINNER OF THE COSTA POETRY AWARD
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION
Flèche (the French word for 'arrow') is an offensive technique commonly used in fencing, a sport of Mary Jean Chan's young adult years, when they competed locally and internationally for their home city, Hong Kong.