When the esteemed composer, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) wrote his suite of musical motifs entitled, 'Songs without Words' he created a concept where, important as it is, the notion of the song needs not the strut of words.

Tiffany Chan might be said to have approached the performative quality of her verse and prose in a similar way but with the emphasis on the word with the unheard melody not too far behind. In a sense, her work is based on the lyricism of song, of tune and melody. Whilst music is in itself a fascinating construct, whether formulaic or repetitive, the words strung across a page and without the framework of bars and notes perform in a similar fashion. Musical notes have bars to perform on. The word has the emptiness - or seemingly so - of the bare page. The stage-page.

Throughout Chan's magnetic and very engaging livre de poche, 'Ceason', she has not only created the protagonist of the same name - her identity - but in a sense, ours too. This is not so much hiding an identity but donning one, the better to express perhaps unlinked but integral feeling and thought - personal and yet, universal. So many elements Chan writes about are direct and fully appreciated - simple lines, descriptions, ideas which force memory and experience. She speaks of such sentiments in a selection of blank verse pieces... 'I miss the way grass/smells after a storm,' We are messy/ imperfect, and/ have too many feelings' and 'tilt your head,/ try another angle,/see it now?' Are these not all thoughts that we have all entertained? The particular smell of grass, the way our feelings present too much colour on a palette and if things especially 'go wrong' - like a bird - tilt the head for a new understanding...A new appraisal? An acceptance - as eventually, startled birds will forget the mourning of the robbed nest and try again, next year.

By letting poetry and prose dance side by side, unlinked but linked also, Chan's intent is to face the simplicity of complexity. How crystallized is the truth of an ancient Haiku slice for example, and how over-painted a wonderful ode can be. Brevity is not only the soul of wit in this book but sorrow, loss, gladness and indeed, acceptance. It seems that Chan has channelled simple observation and feeling into tangible reality which reflects what it is to be this complex construct we call human.

And then...Back to music, song, lyricism, melody, the beauty of created or natural cacophony which makes us all too aware of being human...

The celebrated poet John Keats wrote - 

‘Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.’

Can you not hear Chan's orchestra?

London, June 2025