Review of Su Zi's DANKE by Jonathan Fletcher

Danke

Su Zi

Ethel Zine and Micro Press

2024

49 pgs.

$10

“Darkest moon cycle: / ritual of dawn and dusk, / wet wind bends dry grass. . .” (Su Zi 3). And so begins Su Zi’s Danke (2024), a chapbook-length poem in quatrains.  Though small in dimensions, relatively short in word count, Danke is anything but lean in subtext, diction, meaning, or description.  Within the compact pages, each rich in detail, crows summon mornings, moons melt, and a horse “allows a long embrace” (ibid. 18).  Though full of such unique and skillful instances of anthropomorphism, Danke does much more than lend nonhuman characters human attributes; it invites the reader into an environment too often (and equally sadly) foreign to a modern reader. 

 

As if aware of the cultural divide between such a reader and the pastoral, the speaker addresses Red Woman, presumably one of a handful of equine characters, at various points in the chapbook.  In such intimate moments, however, the reader gets the sense that the speaker is gesturing toward them as much as the horse, and maybe even the author herself. In such moments, too, the speaker nearly (and implicitly) bemoans the tragic and irrevocable separation of humanity from its primal habitat while also (and equally fervently) celebrating, even ennobling, the nonhuman characters and their georgic environment.  Su Zi’s choice of capitalization of the common names of the various animals (e.g. Mourning Dove, Cardinal, and Warbler) only lends further support for such an interpretation.

In Danke, Su Zi wisely eschews ornate language for plainer (though not plain) diction.  Though not exactly minimalist in nature, Su Zi’s descriptions are simple (though not simplistic) in syntactical construction.  Take, for example, the following quatrain: “never forgetting / hungry years, palomino now learns gentleness. / following difficult steps / those of a beloved ghost” (ibid. 7).  Or, to take another example: “grass is burnt with frost / yet my red sister searches / for sleeping green roots / disinterested in grain / it seems she dreams of sweetness” (ibid. 31). Or, yet another example: “these simple moments: / cranes come to peck corn and dance, / sun sweetens damp air / so Sister Mare cleans all seeds, strolls soft-eyed in golden light” (ibid. 35).  Though arguably quiet and reflective, Su Zi’s minimal language emotionally charges such otherwise interior moments.  Though neither metered nor rhymed, Danke operates with an informal rhythm.  It operates with alliteration and assonance (“awful arctic air” being an example of the former,” “flit of the left oat” an example of the latter) (ibid. 23, 21).  It operates with anaphora: “this moment’s wet wind / this moment’s intimacy / this forever in the now” (ibid. 19).  Though never overwhelmed by such conventional poetic devices, Danke allows for just enough and, in doing, so not only informs and enlightens the reader but transforms them.

Although Su Zi’s chapbook-length poem is indeed a quick read, it is one that stays with the reader long after.  It is one that begs for a reread. Several, in fact. Don’t pass up this literary revelation. Pick up Su Zi’s chapbook today, and let it settle within you. Let it rumble.  Let it rise.  You won’t be disappointed.

Jonathan Fletcher holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Columbia University School of the Arts.  His work has been featured in numerous literary journals and magazines, and he has won or placed in various literary contests.  A Pushcart Prize nominee, he won Northwestern University Press’s Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize contest in 2023, for which he will have his debut chapbook, This is My Body, published in 2025.  Currently, he serves as a Zoeglossia Fellow and lives in San Antonio, Texas.