Review of Edward Gunawan’s The Way Book by Oli Villescas

review of The Way Back

poetry collection by Edward Gunawan

What is home? A place, mirage, an amalgamation of our minds or all of these components and more. Edward Gunawan simultaneously asks, rejects, and confirms what family entails in its most raw and unabashed forms. The way back asks why exactly we believe in the things we do; encroaching readers' ideals in seminal moments of fear, shame and truth. Traditional morals enacted by default are represented and tested through Gunawan’s polarizing imagery that didactically guides us from arrival to transcendence.

Gunawan begins with a detailed and instruction-like experience of the seemingly monotonous process of renewing a passport, yet upon further rumination one cannot ignore the blatant issuance of fear and conformity that lies in perception. He adheres to social dynamics of immediately categorizing himself and in turn issues reflection on the reader as to why queerness need be justified or explained as a point of reasoning ones existence. This fearful voice, tangible and seemingly always on guard is directly juxtaposed with untethered and abstract metaphors of individuality. Gunawan poetically kindles simultaneously burning themes of identity, colonization, nationalism and reveals its controlling mechanisms manifested in family and oneself.

for you are not correct by default and I’m not wrongwrongwrong – one of the most memorable lines I am sure I will ever come across in poetic writing, is the freeing ending to a well placed poem in the middle of Gunawan’s collection that asserts and defends the boundless nature of language. Throughout he creates mysterious and melancholic dejavu, moments that seem all too familiar to many queer people of color while remaining uniquely specific to Gunawan’s Indonesian born-Chinese immigrant experience. Epigraphs and homage to poets Craig Santos Perez, Natalie Diaz and Audre Lorde encapsulates an affinity for diasporic and intersectional writing that Gunawan so

masterfully engages in. In short, I had no real critique of his work. Well perhaps I hoped there would be more poems, but as it lays this body of work is exceptional in all regards. While tonal shifts are strikingly chaotic and each poem is intricately woven with wonderful contradiction, there is no mistaking Gunawan’s commanding voice that one is compelled to listen to again and again.

Oli Villescas Poetry Editor

61