Riddle me fish
Tinfish 18: Poetry, Puzzles and Games / In its 13-year history, Tinfish Press has made a name for itself not just by refusing to shy away from difficult issues but by embracing them. Its latest installment, Tinfish 18: Poetry, Puzzles and Games is a collection from a group of 2008 graduates of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa master’s English program. It’s compelling and effectively thought-provoking, if you can look past the sometimes contrived pieces that seem to incite controversy solely for controversy’s sake, in the same way that some words appear to be spelled non-traditionally (like “underst&”) just to be different. Still, like many important literary compilations, these off-kilter inclusions serve to expand the way readers think about things, and challenging the norm can be valuable in itself.
Entries are written in English, Hawaiian and pidgin and they come together in a way that, as publisher Susan M. Schultz suggests in her introduction, highlights a paradox that befits Hawai’i: That is, the contrast between its simple natural beauty and the complications–socio-economic, racial, intellectual–of living here. Particularly compelling are Kai Gaspar’s perspicacious poetic offerings. Gaspar makes astute social and psychological commentary, often using symbols of the natural world–a gun feels scaly like a fish, a poem “grows slippery… flips and bends its muscular pages.” Gaspar’s style further highlights the aforementioned paradox, and teeters between where darkness and beauty meet and where they diverge.
Also intriguing are the contributions from Ryan Oishi, who gives an interpretation of Aloha Airlines Flight 243–the Boeing 737 that made an emergency landing on Maui in 1988 after an explosive decompression tore much of the roof off in midair–imagining that a giant shark bit into the aircraft 24,000 feet above the ocean’s surface. He wrote:
“Airplanes not da natural prey of sharks
the way rainbows are
I bet you da shark
mistook the red and yellow stripe
along the fuselage
maybe it was hard for see
in da cumulonimbus clouds
the moment before it rolled back its eyes”
Oishi wonders about the scuba divers who must’ve seen that incident’s one fatality, flight attendant Clarabelle Lansing, falling from the sky.
Topics covered throughout the journal include the Iraq War, sovereignty, poverty, immigration, land development and violence. Poems are broken up by connect-the-dots, find-the-difference, and other games and puzzles.
It’s a worthwhile collection filled with contemplative expressions of those engaged in what occupies the minds and hearts of our community, and enlivens our own considerations of the people and ideas around us.
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