Moments of Learning and Loving: Review of Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin's Fire Cider Rain
Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin, Fire Cider Rain
Coach House Books, 2022. $22.95 CAD.
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Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin’s debut poetry collection Fire Cider Rain incorporates themes of family, diaspora, and longing by using descriptive nature imagery as the backdrop for these musings. This book feels like watching an indie movie: the images soft but vivid in the reader’s eyes. By incorporating visuals of the living world, Ng Cheng Hin showcases the similarities of experiencing time and its passing as it relates to both nature and humankind. Ng Cheng Hin’s writing is soft and intentional, with delicate and strong images of womanhood, generational teachings, and the lessons the land can teach us.
Because the collection is rooted deeply in stories of matriarchs, Ng Cheng Hin intertwines narratives about womanhood and the different roles women may hold in the family. Consider the following line from “Seamelt I”: “we fall asleep like this / the way mothers and daughters do / the way women do / or inconsistent lovers: // underwater weeds, tangled together / bolting for the sun.” (19). This image that Ng Cheng Hin gives us is one that we can see and feel clearly. There is a certain gentleness that she describes in this image, one that is translated effortlessly through her writing.
The theme of motherhood and daughterhood is recurrent: existing in lines in the poem, “The Laws of Thermodynamics,” where she writes, “like mother like daughter like matter like water —” (23). In this line, differently than that from “Seamelt I,” Ng Cheng Hin writes with such succinctity, holding a relationship so large in just eight words. She is particular with her words, as if carefully picking them like flowers to arrange in a bouquet. Ng Cheng Hin incorporates visceral nature imagery, and always appears to have the most apt natural occurrence of the Earth to apply to each situation. To have such a strong grasp of both the phenomena of people and of the world makes for poetry that exists in multiple planes, beautifully crafted in each one.
Aside from the writing itself, the structure within which Ng Cheng Hin writes pushes the bounds of traditional page poetry and allows for more creativity to take up space. In her poem, “Dictionaries in the Sand”, Ng Cheng Hin defines a number of terms, first factually, then poetically. The two that stand out in particular are that for “moss” and “plate tectonics'': “moss” being defined as “lately I have been searching for moss in the most decrepit / of places: abandoned carparks, garbage dumpsters, sidewalk / cracks. if there is life after death, if the sun has not given in, / it will be here” (42); and “plate tectonics'' defined as “the way Wàipó smelled before she died: nectarine and / formaldehyde. the way she sounded: like an animal sprint- / ing, breathless, back into its own body.” (42). This structure is unique and allows for an interpretation that only Ng Cheng Hin can provide: one that the reader takes in and is grateful for. She intertwines her definitions through the lenses she has already contextualized the collection in, providing a deeper understanding of the actors in her stories through this chosen structure.
Within writing about the diaspora, it is fitting for generational teachings to find their way into one’s writing. In the poem, “The Turtle Behind the Cigarette Shop”, Ng Cheng Hin writes, “Some people think pain para- / lyzes you. Us islanders? We know better. We know that pain makes / you move -- even the memory of pain is enough to set you in motion.” (35). The author has shared something with us so intimate that the reader feels as though they have walked into a moment they were not supposed to be privy to. The deliverance of this line holds so much weight — and as a diasporic person, it holds even more. The validation of this experience, one that many of the diaspora know deeply, is one that as a reader, I am grateful to have verbalized.
On the other hand, generational teachings can be what you hope that one’s descendants can learn from you and those before you. In the poem, “When She Stopped Me at the Gas Station in Hautes-Plaines,” Ng Cheng Hin writes, “don’t forget how to stay. / no matter how many times you need to leave, / don’t forget how to stay.” (86). This feels like a needed reminder for many of us, especially those who do not feel as though they have roots in any one place, or if those roots have been ripped out without our consent. The way Ng Cheng Hin weaves these teachings into her poetry makes for a well-wrapped gift for the reader. We can both engage with her poetry and gain tangible life lessons.
Fire Cider Rain is a book of warmth. Ng Cheng Hin never gives the reader more than they can handle, and curates moments of solemn learning and loving for the reader to soak in. This debut is a slow burn, and I am hopeful that there will be more on the horizon.
Namitha Rathinappillai (she/they) is a disabled, queer, Tamil-Canadian spoken word poet who has entered the poetry community in 2017. She is currently based in Toronto, and was the first female and youngest director of Ottawa’s Urban Legends Poetry Collective (ULPC). They are a two-time Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (CFSW) team member with ULPC, and they published their first chapbook titled ‘Dirty Laundry’ with Battleaxe Press in November of 2018. In 2019, they won the RBC Youth Ottawa Spirit of the Capital Award for Arts and Culture. You can find more at namitharathinappillai.com.