"Pebble Swing is a nuanced
collection of poetry that is refreshingly, devastatingly new. Isabella, with
her direct and clear-eyed poetic voice, takes on the markers of Canadian
poetry–landscape, identity and place–but makes them entirely her own. It is
remarkable that a young Chinese Canadian poet can engage so precisely with the
canonized literary past, while making sure her own linguistic fingerprint
remains distinct, heartbreaking and real. Pebble Swing is
one of the most exciting debut books, in any genre, that I have ever read."–Jen
Sookfong Lee, author of the end of east
"The
poems in Isabella Wang's Pebble Swing move like fireflies.
Shying away from big revelations they offer brief, brilliant illuminations that
last long after one has laid the book down. To enter these poems is to mull
over history and place and to understand that the poet for whom "there was no
place for my language in this new country" has made of language itself a
home–for herself and for her readers."–Eve Joseph, author of
In the Slender Margin