Using long poems, ekphrasis, and ruptured forms, RENDANG is a startling new take on the self, and how an identity is constructed. Drawing on his Anglo-Indonesian heritage, Will Harris shows us new ways to think about the contradictions of identity and cultural memory. He creates companions that speak to us in multiple languages. They deftly ask us to consider how and what we look at, as well as what we don’t look at and why. It is intellectual and accessible, moving and experimental, and combines a linguistic innovation with a deep emotional rooting.
‘The Hanged Man’
He bought a seeded loaf and two ripe and ready avocados
and left them in the hallway, and at lunch the next day went
to Chipotle on Charing Cross Road, then back to work,
and afterwards bought a ring doughnut from Tesco
because there were no jam doughnuts.
That night, though he didn’t think he was a hoarder,
he started ordering records online and soon he had bought
the whole of Bruce Springsteen’s back catalogue.
I hate Bruce Springsteen, he thought. I want to eat better.
The next week, listening to Human Touch, he dozed
and woke to find himself floating two feet off the ground.
Hanging there. His parents were alive and dead.
If only he could keep completely still he could remain
unscattered, forever on the edge of rain.
About the author
Will Harris is a London-based poem who has published with The Guardian, The New Republic, The London Review of Books, Granta and The Poetry Review among other places. His debut poetry book RENDANG was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and won the Forward Prize for the Best First Collection. He co-facilitates the Southbank New Poets Collective and works in extra care homes. In 2022, his co-translation (with Delaina Haslam) of Habib Tengour’s Consolation was published. His second book of poems Brother Poem is published by Granta in the UK and by Wesleyan in the US in March 2023.
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