Jinx Davis reviewed Chath pierSath’s On Earth Beneath Sky: Poems /// Sketches for Magical Cambodia:
CHATH PIERSATH LIVES BETWEEN AND BETWIXT WORLDS BOTH INSIDE AND OUT. IT IS A BALANCING ACT OF MEMORIES, EMOTIONS, AND CULTURES – AND HE IS COURAGEOUS ENOUGH TO FALL OFF THE TIGHTROPE.
Reality surpasses the imagination, spoke Soth Polin the Khmer writer and intellectual who admitted his difficulty in writing after the personal and national atrocities of the Khmer Rouge genocide. Yet the new literature emerging from Khmer writers is resilient in its explorations of the past and the present.
Chath pierSath is one such writer and his new book On Earth Beneath Sky abounds with a vibration suitable for both insiders and outsiders to reimagine Cambodia, America, sexuality, family, and the chronic tensions between the past, present, and future. Above all, his writing is refreshingly fearless and honest. Having three published books behind him, On Earth Beneath Sky is a wide selection of 68 poems and prose sketches that traverse the emotional terrains of the uncertainty of life.
Chath is a conjurer and astute palm reader of Cambodia, the United States, and his own selfhood in his poems and prose sketches. He writes like he paints, swirling images in intensity and sadness; throwing darts at ideas or assumptions; pleading and longing, yet always finding a path towards reconciliation, soothing, and a celebration of life. He moves past expected trauma healing narratives and instead leads his readers to rummage around their own minds to discover misconceptions, views, and what they may have taken for granted. . . .