Chan

Chan is a mercurial name, representing the travelers and shape-shifters of the poems in this collection. It is one of the many nicknames of Hannah Lowe's Chinese-Jamaican father, borrowed from the Polish migr card magician Chan Canasta. It is also a name from China, where her grandfather's story begins. Alongside these figures, there's Joe Harriott, the Jamaican alto saxophonist, shaking up 1960s London; a cast of other long-lost family; and a ship full of dreamers sailing from Kingston to Liverpool in 1947 on the SS Ormonde. Hannah Lowe's second collection follows her widely acclaimed debut, Chick.