Light

by Souvankham Thammavongsa

Souvankham Thammavongsa's third book of poetry, Light, examines the word that gives the collection its name. There are poems about a sparkle, about how to say light, about a scarecrow, a dung beetle, a fish without eyes. Known for her precision and elegance, for her small clear voice, for distilling meaning from details, for not wasting words, Thammavongsa confirms her gifts with these new poems. Light is a work that shines with rigour, humour, courage and grit.

Genres: Poetry, Canada, Read For School

73 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2013

About the author

Souvankham Thammavongsa is the author of four poetry books, and the short story collection HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE, won the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and and was New York Times Editors' Choice, out now with McClelland & Stewart (Canada), Little, Brown (U.S.), and Bloomsbury (U.K.). Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Granta, NOON, Journey Prize Stories 2016, Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018, and O. Henry Prize Stories 2019. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, Thailand, and was raised and educated in Toronto where she now lives.

Reviews

[Paige Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5

much better than the last anthology I read. I felt a bit off-put (but also impressed?) by how closely the author stuck to the theme of light and its many uses, but I still remain content with the collection overall

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

So glad to be able to read my sister in law's new book of poetry. From cover to cover its beautiful with each single entry diverse and yet contained by something greater.

[Chelsea M · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.
Some good moments but I just didn’t love it. I found the word play more tiring than anything else, and the short poems, like many in their formatting, failed to show me their magic.
I believe she is at her best in poems like Perfect, which was the highlight for me.

[Luigi Sposato · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, as someone else states, is like an event—rollercoaster, comedy, epic—you decide.

Amazingly involving.

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many things in our lives that we take for granted. But reading and understanding literature allows us to get a better grasp of things by allowing us to see the perspective of the world through somebody else's eyes. Souvankham Thammavongsa has given her interpretation of the world in her collection of poetry called Light and it's simple words allows for an interesting revaluation of one's perspectives.

http://wp.me/p46Ewj-G4

[Susan]

My favourite poem in this book of poetry was PERFECT, especially the last 17 lines, especially the last two lines.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Icelandic the word for light is ljós

And the word for poem is ljóð

What happens at the end can change everything...

- ljós, pg. 12

Thammavongsa's exploration of light is dazzling. The poet takes us from the lowest depths of the sea (where we encounter the squid of "Colossal Squid") to unreachable heights ("A Star"). In both cases, relying on the juxtaposition of darkness and light, as in the yin-yang: "describing how opposite or contrary forces are actually complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another" (Wikipedia)

Last winter fishermen caught a giant squid
off the coast of New Zealand and sold it to


a museum for scientific study and research.
It was said that if you cut it up and fried it


it would taste like ammonia. It was said it is
rather rare to find a squid this size. They were


hoping this one was female because the one
they had in the lab was male. They said the


eyes were the size of "dinner plates" and
could absorb a great amount of light. Why


this was important had something to do with
where it lived, where there was no light at all.

- Colossal Squid, pg. 16

*

THE DARK

is light.

when light

isn't here

It comes

in

the same way

takes up

what light left,

and makes

sure

to this

it comes back

- The Dark, pg. 22-23

*

A STAR

is sugar-grained

sprinkle

of light

thrown

to dot

a darkened sky

- A Star, pg. 27

Language is also prominent. After sharing the Icelandic word for "Light", the poet proceeds to tell the reader how to say fire in Lao (in "Fie"), the Arabic word for light (in "Noor"), and how they say light in Amsterdam (in "licht"). Again like the yin-yang, when we consider these other languages we compare and contrast with our own...

This is how you say fire in Lao


Anything that has light must acknowledge that first fire


Fie mie is fire when it's burning something down


A house burns down, a forest, a city


Fie sang is flashlight


A man-made object, a thing you take out into that not-knowing


Fie fa is thunder


That scrawl of light in the shape broken things first take


Fie mot is what happens when you're not expecting it

- Fie, pg. 13

*

The Arabic word for light


Two circles sit side by side


Twins, equal in size and shape and the space they both contain


They had been made to be like each other


Up there, one contains all light


Kept at a distance, as far away as a lost love, a hope long past, a compass for the sun, a backseat to, a smaller sidekick


On this sheet of paper, these two circles look to be the same, as close in likeness as they could ever be


Stripped of light, one is like the other, as small, as equal, as alone

- Noor, pg. 38

*

That's how they say light in Amsterdam


Like it's something you take into your mouth or begin to, something you can get close enough to lick


I thought light always had something to do with the eye, a thing you see when it's open


I never thought it could be something you could reach out for, pluck out of its place in the universe and its order


What if the sun tasted like orange sorbet? The kind served on a single glass spoon?


What if the sun isn't hot, if it has no heat, if it doesn't burn, if there are no bursts of fire or storms happening out there? Or anything, really, to fear up close?


If things aren't set, if in the order of things a law can come loose

- Licht, pg. 65

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVED her collection of short stories, "How To Pronounce Knife", so went back to read some of her poetry. I even gifted copies of the book of short stories to friends one Holiday.
So, my copy is warmly inscribed to "Sunny Wang" - and the only Suny Wangs I find when I Google the name is an actor/model from a wealthy shipping family, and a guy in BC who set up a huge fraudulant immigration sceme there!
And I wonder if she inscibed this book to either of them. "To Sunny, who had the sun in her name." Oops, nope, it is to a woman named Sunny. Maybe the Dr I found with that name?
Anyways, poetry not exactly my forte (although I do want to thank publishers for even continuing to print volumes of poetry - it can not be a huge money maker!). The poems comparing like sounding, or spelled (???? - spelled????), words were a bit of fun. Yes, the prose-like poems seemed better and more personable. I did like the many poems on the the theme of "light"min the volume. And the more than a handful of poems with unique typographical presentation were "interesting".

[AH · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely enjoy poetry but this was a very special collection of poems. I cried when I read Perfect, actually. It’s very human to want to go back and rescue the old versions of ourselves; especially the version that existed before our lives were cleaved into two halves: the before and the after. I just had a hard time recognizing that about myself before reading Perfect, I guess. Idk thoooooughhhh!!! :))))

[Gary Horst · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Light" - a collection of poems by Souvankham Thammavongsa. I found this on the discard shelves of the library a few years ago, before the author had won the Giller Prize for her collection of short stories: "How to Pronounce Knife." Very creatively written and presented. It's now headed for the Thrift Store for someone else to enjoy.

[Altan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it a fair amount. We'll see.

[Danilo DiPietro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proxy for ‘Bozo’ New Yorker short story for Ann’s Book Club. Beauty & Loneliness

[True :) · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book was so indescribably painful that it made me want to walk into the light.

[Farozaan Raza · Rating 4 out of 5]

i need to read more poetry collections

[Nico · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually 2.5 stars. Read for my Literature for Our Time course, and got through it in probably just over an hour. I didn't dislike it, but I have such an odd relationship with poetry. I really want to love it, but it just rarely happens. Connected with the poems 'Perfect' and 'Dream' (coincidentally the two poems that were longer and sounded more like prose, because of course) and I will say this: YAY CANADIAN AUTHORS!

*ahem*

There were more than a few references in here to Ontario and specifically Toronto, so I always enjoy that. The formatting of the book was also very unique - which I learned in lecture is no coincidence and was handpicked by the author herself while paying attention to the smallest detail. I really do appreciate all the thought and care that went into this.

Again, didn't hate it, I just appear to be very picky about poetry.

[Beth Follett · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Each Souvankham Thammavongsa poem feels like an *event,* which makes a new collection akin to a small riot. In *Light,* she does what only very good poets do: sees the things others miss. This is the work of a poet at the top of her game." — Kevin Connolly

Winner of the 2014 Trillium Award for Poetry and the CBC Bookie for Best 2013 Canadian Book of Poetry, *Light* is a collection that drapes itself over the reader like fine gossamer veil. Like fine bone china, a reader wrote to me. *Fine,* an operative word. Poet at the top of her game. Yes. Yes.

[Sammiwychan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a beautiful collection!

[Chickadee Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thammavongsa’s newest poetry collection, Light, is absolutely beautiful.

Like this collection, my review will be short and sweet. These poems make everyday objects and experiences fresh, beautiful and exciting in ways I never thought possible. Thammavongsa takes topics like parsley, a dung beetle and a straight line and crafts them into complex and moving poems.

It strikes me that this collection is very modest. The poetry is accessible and clean. It is not complicated for the sake of being complicated and it does not sneer at those who, like myself, are not familiar with very much poetry. Reading this poetry feels calm.

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