Scattered Vertebrae Book Review

Scattered Vertebrae reviewed, Jerrold Yam’s second poetry collection filled with deep, sensitive, and explicit poems

Cover page of Scattered Vertebrae, costing $16.00 online (PHOTO: VALERIE KOK)

Scattered Vertebrae by Jerrold Yam encompasses the raw and honest truth of Yam’s personal experiences with family, religion, and sexuality.

Jerrold Yam pursued Law at University College London, graduating with first-class honours and also received the Dean’s List award in 2015. Over the years, Yam has since published three poetry collections entitled; Intruder (Ethos Books, 2014) , Scattered Vertebrae (Math Paper Press, 2013) , and Chasing Curtained Suns (Math Paper Press, 2012).

His works have been featured in countless magazines and news articles such as The Straits Times, Time Out Magazine, Southeast Asia Globe and many more. He was even nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the youngest Singaporean candidate to-date, when he was only 20 years old.

Diving into the second poetry collection; Scattered Vertebrae , Yam shared his main inspiration for the book; “the interaction between a triptych of countervailing forces: family, religion and sexuality”.

The entire book is 199 pages long, in which the abundant poems consist of 109 pages, each one depicting Jerrold’s personal struggles, thoughts and encounters.

Jerrold shared that, “The collection is largely written in a lyrical, confessional style based on personal experience so it’s the most personal collection I’ve ever written to date”. He also goes on to say, “poetry based on personal experience is not autobiography - the two should not be conflated. It’s a reimagination rather than reality”. Jerrold’s transparency in Scattered Vertebrae towards the topics, despite the possible controversies, really shed a lot of insight on his skill and authenticity as a writer.

Having released a book with topics that could be considered sensitive in Singapore’s local context, Jerrold expressed his apprehensions during the release of his book. He said, “at that time [2013] discourse around sexuality and religion was still muted; it’s astounding to see how much progress has been made in just the last 6 years and how much further there is to go.”

In fact, statistics from Statista states that there was a total of 266 million Electronic books (Ebooks) sold in 2017 alone. Ebooks are slowly rising to become another alternate option as compared to print books.

So when asked why he chose to publish a physical book, Yam responded with, “Call me old school, but there is nothing quite like feeling the weight of an open book on one’s palms. Sales of physical poetry books have actually increased in the past few years.”

A fellow reader and reviewer of Scattered Vertebrae , Kenna O’Rourke, also expressed that her first impressions of the book were that “it was well-written” and that she “enjoyed the thematic elements of the book, as well as the attention to design.”

Despite the complexity of the book’s content and details, O’Rourke confessed, “I had very few expectations going in but enjoy new poetry so I think it pretty much met my expectations.”

O’Rourke summed it up as she said, “I remember reading it as a compelling new voice in poetics. It was a fascinating read.”

Yam’s authenticity in his expressions really add a personal touch to the book for readers. With rising discussions of identity, sexuality or religion amongst the youth, Yam’s second collection is definitely relatable.

One of Yam’s interesting reads, entitled MAKEOVER, about relating the use(s) of makeup to himself in his mother’s womb before his birth (PHOTO: VALERIE KOK)

Personally, my favourite from the collection’s second book has to be MAKEOVER. Yam links the simple, delicate process of facial beautification to himself, years ago, in his mother’s womb.

He writes from “The mask on my face is strangely comforting, like a newborn’s triumphant coat of mucus.” to “shaping together bits of my existence, and frailty, in the starchy oblivion of my mother’s second heart, my cheeks pressed”.

For me, what interested me were the intimate descriptions and choice of words. At first glance, they come off as confusing but the beauty of it, or the entirety of poems in general, is that Yam does not tell his stories with surface meaning.

I picked up my copy of Scattered Vertebrae at the Woodlands Regional Library Singapore in perfect condition. If you want to purchase your own copy, the price is $16.00, excluding shipping fee, on online websites such as localbooks.sg or booksactuallyshop.com.

However, diving deep into this book also means affixing yourself with Yam’s unconventional topics crafted in the rather explicit and descriptive manner. Scattered Vertebrae is certainly more for those interested in English Literature or Singapore poetry.

Rating for Scattered Vertebrae ( /5):