Tania De Rozario

after i finished reading the last poem of this book (i was in bed), i sunk into my pillow & said "wow that was good" The first poem in the book:

What You Are

I want to write you a poem that unravels
from the gut, hurls itself towards you
like a slap across the mouth. Let my words
unleash themselves upon you like dogs
looking for a fight, like seeds bursting
from overripe pods. let every vowel
explode in your face like cruel laughter,
every consonant pronounce itself like
death into your ear, every comma
trip up your speech, every full-stop
prevent you from finding your way
home. I hope you were not expecting

sweet nothings, loves songs, cherished
cliches; the heart that triumphs over
adversity, finds strength in the adoring
eyes of a child, realises that we are
not so different after all. Surely you are
not so naive, not thinking I am going to turn
this into some love poem, waxing lyrical
about secrets whispered between sweethearts,
or about hands held on crowded trains
at dawn. Or about you, as if you take root
at the base of my spine, fingers climbing
each vertebra one by one. This is not

some ode with your name on it. I want
to write you a poem that drives a bullet
through your beliefs, plagues you
with your own reflection, smashes every
illusion like bricks through a window
pane; let it stir the birds in your chest
so hard they burst through your flesh
in a spectacle of sound and despair. I
want to write you a poem that lingers
on your breath like cigarettes, stings
your eyes like salt, a finger pointing
unflinchingly: this is what you are
_

It's a good start to her book because not only does she set the tone, she gives you a sort of matric to understand her poems. She wants us to be moved; to be forcefully thrown into her poems & then into ourselves. We must be emotionally implicated. Her words she sets to us like dogs, every vowel explodes in our face, etc etc. Already, we see how the decentered self ("... every comma trip up your speech, every full-stop prevent you from finding your way home") is also ironically the locus of finding our true Self ("a finger pointing unflinchingly: this is what you are).

If Alfian Sa'at's poems in The Invisible Manuscript, as I described in a previous review, show that identity formation or realization is a discursive discourse or process, Tania De Rozario's Tender Delirium shows us how identity formation can come from a painful & bewildering process of confronting, questioning, testing & even crossing boundaries. Constantly she'll disrupt our expectations through the structure of poems (she's amazing with this!). She will shatter cliches ("I hope you were not expecting sweet nothings, loves songs"), present moments where stereotypes are confronted, where lines are blurred and situations where one is so disarmed with unfamiliarity & so removed from their comfort zones. Every self-constructed barrier & mask you put up in social situations, every subconscious lie you tell yourself is peeled away & you are left only with your true self, raw, vulnerable & naked.

In fact, perhaps it's not so much about identity formation as identity realization. Our self is already inside us. So what is left is a sort of anamnesis; realizing or recalling knowledge that we already know. Like a midwife, she shows us how we can go through this process of recollection. She shows us how she bled, which wounds she kept open so that the light will always get in and the assurance that this emotional & psychological violence has a tender, fulfilling reward -- knowledge of who we truly are. After writing that last line, I just realized how apt the title "Tender Delirium" is.… (mere)