The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza by Cyril Wong

Infinity Diary is a development beyond Satori Blues which explores time (2011) and Tilting Our Plates to Catch the Light (2007) which explores personal history through mythology in a manner reminiscent of Louise Gluck. (The term Confessional is used so freely these days that we have almost forgotten its roots: sitting in the gloom, in a coffin-like box, confessing sins with a sense of shame). Writing personally from the intimate self is an act of defiance not of personal indulgence – it is also a pointed response to a restrictive Catholic upbringing. But Wong is not Confessional in the usual sense: Confessionalism is a political stance taken against state-dictated poetical norms in Singapore. So, what is Infinity Diary? It is a collection of poems in the confessional mode, like the end of his orbit (2002). For many, this will be an introduction to Cyril Wong – a difficult introduction – and reviews in the wrong key do a disservice.

Infinity Diary is the first work (of poetry) to be easily obtainable in the UK and USA (Waterstones, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble stock it). Why? Because his work, published as it is (by gutsy publishers) in Singapore, is hard to obtain – shipping it to the UK, for example, is expensive and prohibitive. Cyril Wong is a poet of quality, but he has never found the audience that he deserves. In making this judgement, a popular opinion has been read into the book: Cyril Wong is Singapore’s first Confessional poet, so this book must be a typical example of confessional writing – like “Rupi Kaur in places' – and shows “a surfeit of the confessional mode.' Really? Infinity Diary is a light year away from the early Cyril Wong, but then, I doubt that the “honest reviewer” has read any Cyril Wong before 2021, let alone all of Cyril Wong!ĭoes this matter. A book deserves an intelligent response.Īccording to an Indian reviewer, who presumably received a copy of Infinity Diary from Seagull books (India), this latest work by Cyril Wong is “quite like someone’s diary.” I can only wonder at the diaries read by this reviewer, for Infinity Diary is unlike any common diary that I have read and is anything but a piece of writing “rough around the edges.” And a reader is not asked to become a voyeur of “Queer angst”. When will publishers realise that sending books out to social media influencers might do more damage than good? As Pope stated with typical precision in An Essay on Criticism, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.” “An honest review” isn’t the point: any fool can have an honest opinion.

The Last Lesson of Mrs de Souza by Cyril Wong