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An Orange, A Syllable
“An Orange, A Syllable by Gillian Sze is one of the most beautiful and emotionally resonant works I’ve read in a long time.” — My Asian Era blog
An Orange, A Syllable details a period of maternal and artistic transformation. This prosimetrical work is a meditation on motherhood, language, and art. The central speaker witnesses the earliest utterances of her child and launches into a poetic inquiry of words themselves, asking, How to measure one’s mouth by its words? The speaker seeks an answer amidst the language that surrounds her — words misspoken, mispronounced, remembered, unwritten — and, in doing so, struggles with signification and significance.
Each prose poem in the five-part collection darts between the many meanings of “fit” — as in “a sudden burst of emotion” or “to be the right size and shape,” and the archaic “fytte” (a section of a poem). A text becomes an open mouth, a square day of a calendar, or a bare fragment of a narrative. The final section of the book is an intimate and ekphrastic engagement with the work of Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. Drawn to Hammershøi’s paintings of the empty rooms of his apartment, the speaker recognizes a familiar space of art’s insistence.
Each page of An Orange A Syllable is an encounter in a mirrored room printed words reckoning with the subject of speech In visceral lucid diaristic poems Sze explores how language starts in us and how quickly we come up against its limits We see multiplying reflections of motherhood a marriage paintings Chinese words and phrases Sze documents with lyrical precision how the words we say to each other are pivotal translations of ourselves capable of deepening both intimacy and estrangement Sadiqa de Meijer author of alfabetalphabet winner of the 2021 Governor Generals Literary Award for Englishlanguage nonfiction
In An Orange A Syllable Gillian Sze undertakes an exacting philosophical and brilliant study into the intricacies of common spoken words related through etymology culture history interpretation translation and even misunderstanding and confusion Her quiet and graceful prose draws us into intimate moments of childhood wonder motherhood the mundane and the pull of life In retreating into our home into a mothers observances of how a child first learns to speak and slowing down Sze invites us into the space and gaps of her poetry and to pause in a busy and distracted world with tedious chores to find conversation This collection reminded me of moments I marvelled at finding multiple and familiar meanings in my dying mother tongue and the lingua franca in my life A beautiful and extraordinary work Jamie Chai Yun Liew author of Dandelion finalist for Canada Reads 2025
An Orange A Syllable is a breathtaking meditation on motherhood memory and language as well as a beautifully structured work Each of the seventyfive prose poems gently leads to the next one like one room leads to the other in the paintings by Vilhelm Hammershi Szes important poetic reference Meticulously following the mundane Gillian Sze measures the fragile spaces between mother and daughter husband and wife words and languages to show that an open mouth can be as vast as a universe in which black holes are observing us from across the table and everything seems right now In this stunning poetic vision even the simplest of actions like leaving a house can be a meditation on time and space Miljana Cunta author of Nekajkrat smo zali zdaj se vraamo recipient of Slovenias 2024 Grand Preeren Award
An Orange A Syllable by Gillian Sze is one of the most beautiful and emotionally resonant works Ive read in a long time It gave shape to feelings and memories I hold with joy and nostalgia but never thought to articulate Its deeply touching and remarkably relatable especially for readers who value quiet reflective writing that lingers long after the last page My Asian Era blog
As Quiet Night Think was a blend of meditative first person lyric prose and poems around the swirls and reconsiderations of self culture and being that accompanied her new motherhood this latest shifts those leanings back into the shape and approach of the poem a bit further down Szes narrativeparenting line An Orange A Syllable is very much a sequel to that prior collection offering further insights into culture language self and possibility through the ongoing lens of motherhood partnership and domestic patter rob mclennans blog
This poetry is urgent and alive a work of observation and invention that bends the formal and the lyrical toward a singular purpose to observe and to wonder at the astonishing mechanics of speech and being Montreal Review of Books
In An Orange A Syllable Sze makes language tangible and urgent I found the book to be a fascinating exploration of language and a yearning to keep things clear and solid while understanding that this is not how the world works The tmz Review
Sze interrogates words and our reliance upon them for comprehension This fearlessness is what makes the intelligence of her book so compelling She refuses to romanticise connection and resists the suggestion that linguistic intensity can remedy the grief of unknowing Instead absence renders the beauty of the quotidian legible recognisable and full of meaning This holds true for Sze as a poet a partner a parent and a person Cha Journal
Gillian Szes An Orange A Syllable is a cycle of lyric prose poems in a collection so distilled yet supple and lustrous in terms of its language thematic matter intra and intertextuality that one cant but come away convinced of Szes prodigious gifts The Seaboard Review
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Details
Dimensions:
88 Pages
8.5in * 5.5in * 0.215in
0.33lb
Published:
September 02, 2025
Publisher:
ISBN:
9781770418516
Language:
eng
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