LINED PALM by Shelly Bryant

"Each Shelly Bryant poem is a puzzle – where the reader is invited to unpack mystery and meaning, and to finally bathe in the delight of enlightenment. The reading process is one that is gentle, yet one that also carves persistent impressions. Each poem unpacked releases a stream, a tributary leading to a river of discernment that itself joins like bodies sculpting their paths to the open sea. This extended metaphor of the relationship between text and reader is one that is intimated in the Ekphrastic “Grasped for Peter Zhou”, where Shelly likens the reader to a riverbank and the poem to a current. It is not, however, the force of the current that is underlined but the hold that the riverbank has on the river, for the reader actively participates in the making of meaning. The painter with the relaxed grasp on his brush is a mirror of Shelly as she gently and persistently coaxes the reader to a mutually arranged destination."

. . . from the Introduction by Dr. Lynette Tan Yuen Ling, National University of Singapore