Chan is a mercurial name, representing the travellers and shape-shifters of the poems in this collection. It is one of the many nicknames of Hannah Lowe's Chinese-Jamaican father, borrowed from the Polish emigre card magician Chan Canasta. It is also a name from China, where her grandfather's story begins. Alongside these figures, there's Joe Harriott, the Jamaican alto saxophonist, shaking up 1960s London; a cast of other long-lost family; and a ship full of dreamers sailing from Kingston to Liverpool in 1947 on the SS Ormonde. Hannah Lowe's second collection follows her widely acclaimed debut, Chick, which took readers on a journey round her father, a gambler who disappeared at night to play cards or dice in London's old East End to support his family. Published by Bloodaxe in 2013, Chick was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry, and selected for the Poetry Book Society's Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion.
Chan is a mercurial name, representing the travellers and shape-shifters of the poems in this collection. It is one of the many nicknames of Hannah Lowe's Chinese-Jamaican father, borrowed from the Polish emigre card magician Chan Canasta. It is also a name from China, where her grandfather's story begins. Alongside these figures, there's Joe Harriott, the Jamaican alto saxophonist, shaking up 1960s London; a cast of other long-lost family; and a ship full of dreamers sailing from Kingston to Liverpool in 1947 on the SS Ormonde. Hannah Lowe's second collection follows her widely acclaimed debut, Chick, which took readers on a journey round her father, a gambler who disappeared at night to play cards or dice in London's old East End to support his family. Published by Bloodaxe in 2013, Chick was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry, and selected for the Poetry Book Society's Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion.
1. What I Play is Out de Window! Ribs Sax I Sax II Cherokee Pinewood Suite, unrecorded, 1958 Quintet at a Party, 1963 What is and isn't Jazz? Green Amoeba Mingus Sophisticated, slick Alpha Boy All The Bodies in the Foreign Ground, 5000 Miles From Home Coda 2. Out of Many Ran Awa, My Mulatto Boy Justice Out of Many High Yellow Brown Eyes Blue 'Honey' Hakka Paper Baby Lowe Geaneology Eleven O'Clock Child Borderliner Mitchell/Mingus Scott Joplin Rag Fourteen Days in May What Do I Remember of Sophia? What Charlie Said Chin 3. If I Could Write Honestly A Short Biography of My Father Oranges Gloves If I Could Write Honestly Shells For Ida Yam and Callalloo What Ida Said 4. Ormonde Ormonde What I know Distressed British Seamen White Stowaway Schoolboy Dressmaker Boxer Passieros Twist In Ship-breaking Johnny Cakes On Cannon Street Chan
Hannah Lowe was born in Ilford to an English mother and Jamaican-Chinese father. She has lived in London, Brighton and Santa Cruz, California. She studied American Literature at the University of Sussex and has a Masters degree in Refugee Studies. Based in London, she has worked as a teacher of literature and creative writing, and is now studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University and is a teaching fellow in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University. Her first book-length collection, Chick (Bloodaxe Books, 2013), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry, and selected for the Poetry Book Society's Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. This was followed by two pamphlets, R x (sine wave peak, 2013) and Ormonde (Hercules Editions, 2014), and her family memoir Long Time, No See (Periscope, 2015). Her second full-length collection, Chan, is due from Bloodaxe in January 2016.
'This is an outstanding, unputdownable first collection' - John Glenday.; 'An unforgettable book. In an age where blurby superlatives compete on debut book covers, this one has an edge: it is ABOUT someone, namely the poet's late father, from whose name it takes its title... "Say", which exploits understatement to the full, is remarkable, and heartbreaking' - Helena Nelson, Magma.; 'Hannah Lowe's debut collection is wonderful... a book which deals plainly and honestly with big emotions and tender, dramatic personal scenes' - Declan Ryan, Ambit.; 'Lowe's poetry is vibrant and sensitive, devoted to the retrieval of "lost, forgotten things"... skilful, bittersweet' - Chloe Stopa-Hunt, Poetry Review.
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