Steep Tea by Jee Leong Koh, a Singapore-born, New York-based poet, is a wonderfully rich and lyrical narrative on self-identity, diaspora and love. As the title suggests, the poems articulate the embrace of otherness and changes, while traversing different cultures. Koh's lyricism reveals influences from modern poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Mary Oliver and Eavan Boland and Singaporean poet Lee Tzu Pheng; his poetry is full of music, originality and imagination.

"In His Other House" is a beautiful poem on memory and intimacy. The poet's memories of his grandfather, father and his lover are intertwined with memories of spaces in the family home and his own home. The lyrical juxtaposition of different places and stages of life shows how an individual's identity is shadowed by his present and past relationships:

"In this other house there will be time to fill it but right now the bell intones in silver, and here, on a surprise night visit, are my sister and her two daughters coming through the door."

In many of his poems, Koh captures brilliantly the passage of time and the awareness of and engagement with the environment. "Kinder Feelings" articulates the romance or illusion one has for faraway, foreign places. The poem begins with his arrival at New York's Grand Central Terminal, a place full of "intelligent streams" of passengers. He contrasts it with the once seemingly local, unexciting station in Singapore, now remembered fondly for all its strikingly local, unique features:

"[...] where on the walls rice is planted, rubber tapped, tin mined, activities that happened, are happening, elsewhere, not there, and on the platform waiting for the train I watched the grass burn between the railway ties [...]"

Keenly aware of his own different cultural inheritances, born and raised in Asia and later relocated to the US, Koh's poems on translation and the potency of language are deeply moving. In "Suddenly, in Sweden", he portrays a bleak winter scene of silent trees, where "whatever it says shoots up so quickly that it is lost in the space behind the sky."

Overcome with loneliness and silence in the foreign landscape, he convinces us that not everything can be articulated or understood in another culture:

"I say net, but it could have been hair. I say sky, but it was a handcart of discarded clothes. I say silent, but the chimney has been speaking in German all winter."

Koh's experiments with the use of form, line lengths and voice certainly make the poetry deeply refreshing. Moreover, he has an excellent ear for music, and his verse flows effortlessly, even for prose poems such as "Haibun", a beautiful portrait of the poet's mother who reminisces family trips together while the poet reflects on the significance of her presence in his life and their shared memories.

Koh's poems on his hometown, Singapore, with its unique mix of languages and cultures, are vivid and nostalgic. For example, in "Airplane Poems", he conveys the changing significance of traveling for an emigré. While departures may seem liberating at first, nostalgia for home eventually sets in, and complicates the experience of traveling.

"Belting up, on my annual flight to Singapore, I think, migration is the opposite of travel."

In time, the poet realizes that "reaching and leaving easily anywhere" is a naive notion, and experiences a sense of inertia as a result of being part of the diaspora, being unable to develop a true sense of belonging in any one place, being caught in between different cities and cultures.

The choice to start each poem with an epigraph from notable works of poets, however, seems to restrict, rather than liberate his original work, even if the quotes are relevant and engaging. Other than that, there is little to fault, and a lot to admire in this book.

Jennifer Wong is a Hong Kong poet. Her latest collection Goldfish was published by Chameleon Press Ltd

Reprinted with permission from The Asian Review of Books