{"id":17451,"date":"2023-12-05T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/?p=17451"},"modified":"2023-11-08T05:42:10","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T00:42:10","slug":"rhiannon-ng-cheng-hin-fire-cider-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/editorials\/rhiannon-ng-cheng-hin-fire-cider-rain\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201clike mother like daughter like matter like water”: \u00a0Fire Cider Rain<\/em> by Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Water flows throughout Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin\u2019s remarkable Fire Cider Rain<\/em>, with the book\u2019s four sections, titled Evaporate, Condensate, Precipitate and Collect. Water features in many poem titles and in the poems themselves, ranging from omnipresent ocean to storm to \u201cwater on tile\u201d (\u201cSeamelt II\u201d). Fire cider, a spice-infused tonic, comes down as precipitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin<\/strong>. Fire Cider Rain.<\/em> Toronto, ON: Coach House Books, 2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the opening poem, \u201cCoefficients of Friction,\u201d the then eight-year-old speaker and her mother, while emigrating from their island home of Mauritius, \u201cresumed their flight rebirthed.\u201d The old and new lands are contrasted, with Mauritius being \u201can island nation so microscopic, \/ so disposable \/\/ if one thinks of it too fondly, \/ it may cease to exist \/ altogether\u201d (\u201cThe Laws of Thermodynamics III\u201d), whereas where they end up is \u201cthis slated city where children writhe \/ like crocus buds encased in ice\u201d (\u201cAntipode\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the diasporic experience and mother-daughter relationships are central in the book\u2019s shifting timeline. The speaker harks back to the island and to family histories, turning for comfort and security to a caring lover. She remembers mother and grandmother, through tension, alienation, and loss: \u201cI fear the most painful parts of M\u0101m\u0101 have been lying dormant in my sacrum my entire life\u201d (\u201cDictionaries in the Sand\u201d); \u201cM\u0101m\u0101, why do we speak so little these days?\u201d (\u201cThe Laws of Thermodynamics III\u201d); \u201ccordialities littering W\u00e0ip\u00f3\u2019s funeral\u201d (\u201cYear of the Lamb\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intimacy with which Ng Cheng Hin conjures the love and conflicts among these three generations of women is wonderfully skillful, especially given that (as she discussed in a 2023 interview in The Ex-Puritan<\/em><\/a>) her own Chinese-Mauritian heritage is on her father\u2019s side not her mother\u2019s, and while she has visited the island, unlike the speaker of the book, she did not spend her early years there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The poetry\u2019s emotional resonance is powerful, but equally strong are Ng Cheng Hin\u2019s stylistic choices. Recurring phrases and images such as a milkweed tulle, moths, \u201ccorridor in the sky,\u201d and a woman mysteriously exiting an airplane midflight pull threads of connection through the sections. Poems with disparate subjects (a domestic scene between the speaker and her lover Silia v. a dream evoking a swimming hole in Mauritius) are linked by parallel structures and their titles \u201cDry Season\u201d and \u201cWet Season.\u201d \u201cRecipe for a Southern Cyclone\u201d starts with a list of ingredients for the titular fire cider, including \u201ca quiet place to mourn,\u201d while the recipe provides instructions for initiating a massive storm by hand, with the refrain \u201cDon\u2019t be alarmed.\u201d \u201cDictionaries in the Sand\u201d is compelling: like any dictionary, each of a series of English words is followed by a phonetic pronunciation guide and two definitions. The first definitions might be found in a standard dictionary, but the second are scraps of recollection, scenes or thoughts expressed in lush imagery (\u201cthree moons, dipped in water, illuminating a flurry of moths as they bury themselves in my bedroom wall\u201d). Looking closely at the phonetic guide, the reader realizes that each \u201cpronunciation\u201d is really a different concept than the defined word: \u201cRain (n) \\ \u02c8m\u0259-t\u035fh\u0259r \\\u201d; \u201cDeposition (n) \\ f\u0259r-\u02c8giv-n\u0259s \\.\u201d The shadow words exert subtle pressure on the imagistic definitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ng Cheng Hin brings both a scientist\u2019s eye and a poet\u2019s heart to this, her debut. She seamlessly merges lyricism and searing emotion with latinate phrases and ecological\/scientific concepts. The result is an accomplished and evocative collection that promises even greater things to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Bios<\/h2>\n\n\n
\r\n
\r\n \"Frances\r\n <\/figure>\r\n
\r\n

Frances Boyle<\/a><\/h3>\r\n

Frances Boyle<\/strong>\u2019s most recent book is Openwork and Limestone<\/em> (Frontenac House, 2022). In addition to two earlier poetry books, she is the author of Tower<\/em>, a novella (Fish Gotta Swim Editions 2018) and Seeking Shade<\/em>, an award-winning short story collection (The Porcupine\u2019s Quill 2020).\u00a0She is a regular reviewer with both Arc<\/em> and Canthius<\/em>. Raised on the prairies, Frances has long lived in Ottawa on unceded and unsurrended Algonquin Anishinaabeg territory. Visit www.francesboyle.com<\/a> and follow @francesboyle19 on Twitter and Instagram. [updated in November 2023]\r\n\r\nPhoto credit for headshot: Miranda Krogstad<\/p>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Water flows throughout Rhiannon Ng Cheng Hin\u2019s remarkable Fire Cider Rain, with the book\u2019s four sections, titled Evaporate, Condensate, Precipitate and Collect. Water features in many poem titles and in the poems themselves, ranging from omnipresent ocean to storm to \u201cwater on tile\u201d (\u201cSeamelt II\u201d). Fire cider, a spice-infused tonic, comes down as precipitation. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"1571","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"16394,17822,17426,17284","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1571],"tags":[],"genre":[21],"publisher":[170],"issue":[],"poet-in-residence":[],"series":[3134],"topic":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17451"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17451"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17463,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17451\/revisions\/17463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17451"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=17451"},{"taxonomy":"publisher","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publisher?post=17451"},{"taxonomy":"issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue?post=17451"},{"taxonomy":"poet-in-residence","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/poet-in-residence?post=17451"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=17451"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcpoetry.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=17451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}