Issue 3: Interview with Zhi Yi Cham
“I: an emptiness, a bending around a shape, a perimeter around a distance becoming distance itself. Missing.”
~ NOTHING, BUT by Zhi Yi Cham
Your creative nonfiction piece "NOTHING, BUT" is a meditation on what it means to miss another person; an exploration of the condition of longing. What sparked the inspiration for this piece?
The piece was mostly written as I was road tripping to a wedding on my own. Whilst I enjoyed solitude, I also felt entangled in longing for my partner at the time. I wrote it as a means of identifying the root of my longing.
As you primarily write poetry, what did you enjoy or find challenging about writing creative nonfiction? Do the two forms speak to each other at all?
It’s actually been a while since I wrote poems, or at all. I started writing essays to give myself permission to a wider breadth of language to describe my experiences. I find it really hard to expand! 😂 The first time I wrote something that should be an essay, I thought it was a poem.
To me / in my hands, poetry can be a form of creative nonfiction. Poetic language informs the way I am currently writing essays.
Can you tell us about any upcoming creative projects you are working on?
I’m in a band!
黑芝麻 (Hei Zhi Ma) and I are collaborating on a project called 莎瑜(Sha Yu). It started with 黑芝麻 making a soundscape to my piece Anatomy of Fog (aforementioned poem that should have been an essay). We’ve performed this, and other pieces, around Ngunnawal. The project has now expanded. We’re both learning how to code to make digital vignettes incorporating visual, sound and poetry.
I’m just really enjoying learning a new skill and making something beautiful with my friend. As part of Ainslie Salon at the Ainslie + Gorman Arts Centres, we are opening for HTRK in February 2022!
In your piece, you mention the writer Jennifer Nguyen. What other poets or writers are you reading/returning to?
I return to Shu-Ling Chua heaps. There’s a sensuality to the way she writes that feels close to me. I devoured her debut essay collection, Echoes, on two tram rides between Gungahlin and Alinga Street.
More recently I’ve also been drawn to Larissa Pham through her collection, Pop Song, which weaves art criticism, romance and heartbreak. I happened to read it during a breakup, and it was the breakup album I didn’t ask for but needed.
Zhi is an experimental poet/artist based on unceded Ngunnawal/Ngunawal/Ngambri country. They are the author of the award-winning collection of poetry, blur by the, in which their love for food is evident. They are an insufferable troll and are unbearably romantic.