bright sorrow

the bright sorrow is always
ringing, always ringing, and fading
into forgetting

In his second book, Jonathan Chan presents poems written through the years of the pandemic and eruptions of war and strife. Each circles the notion of ‘bright sorrow’, a spiritual state characterised by a profound mingling of joy and grief. These poems look to repentance, to suffering, and to the contradiction of extremities, each glistening at their core.

Jonathan Chan’s poems are distinctively musical, acutely observed, and existentially engaged at the deepest level. They are bracing to discover. Christian Wiman, Poet and author of Zero at the Bone and Survival Is a Style

Jonathan Chan is a poet simultaneously (miraculously!) of the body and of the spirit – the prayerful body, the aching and singing spirit.... As with the great C.P. Cavafy, personal scenes turn into mythic landscapes, and ancient tales become an afternoon’s meal. Chan’s poems are at once feast and plea, story and ruin, sorrow, sorrow, and piercing joy. Chen Chen, Poet and author of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency