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Eileen Chong

Eileen Chong

Eileen Chong is a Sydney poet who was born in Singapore of Hokkien, Hakka and Peranakan descent. She is the author of eleven books. She is the 2025 recipient of the Shanghai Western Sydney Writing Fellowship and a 2026 BR Whiting Studio Residency in Rome. Her most recent book is We Speak of Flowers (UQP, 2025).

‘Rat Music’, a new poem by Eileen Chong

July 2025, no. 477 25 June 2025
When I think of Bach, I recall powdered wigs, a dim, gilded hall, limelight burning on a stage, rouged cheeks, finely turned men’s calves in stockings. I am in the audience, I am in a box seat, I am holding a fan, but really, I am nowhere at all. I could be a rat for that matter, darting under seats, crouching on a ledge, unseen, unnoticed. This evening we will attend a concert of the cellist we ... (read more)

'Curlew', a poem by Eileen Chong

March 2022, no. 440 22 February 2022
For M.F.   What is the use of a full moonnow we do not harvest by its light? There is no one else standing here,lifting their face to the star-studded sky. Do you see the moon’s craters, its dark side?It simply hangs there, brilliant white – * In the living room the childrenand I mime spinning on an axis. We tread an elliptical path aroundthe sun of the dying woman. Later, she gif ... (read more)

‘City Lights: San Francisco’, a new poem by Eileen Chong

June–July 2014, no. 362 01 June 2014
For H. Tamvakeras I was reading a poem in that upstairs sunlit room when I looked up and thought I saw you, Harry, standing beside the window across from the apartment where laundry hung outside like a fireman’s ladder snaking down the brickwork. The man had your narrow shoulders, the same frail back, your steel-grey hair. His head was covered by a baseball cap. He was miss ... (read more)

'After Pintauro', a new poem by Eileen Chong

December 2010–January 2011, no. 327 08 June 2011
And on my travels I came across a boy holding his purple heart in his hands like a broken cup. I touched the handle – it turned into a bluebird and tottered away on unsteady feet. The boy unfolded himself into a crane and tucked his head under a wilted wing. His leg, a post from which a flag flew red, blue and white. I lowered the flapping thing onto the ground and it spread out like ... (read more)