
Pandan Weekly
an email series promoting one hearty,
bite-sized piece from Asia or the diaspora every week
WORK OF THE WEEK
Medieval Romance
Kwan Ann Tan
First published in Dark Horse Magazine in June 2021.
From the author:
Back in 2021, I was studying for a master’s degree in medieval literature, and wrote this poem after one of the weirdest tutorials of my life where fellow students complained how they were being so oppressed because “now everything is about race” ... in an elective the only two people who were non-white in our entire course had chosen to take.
This is a romance. A messenger rides against a backdrop
of moonlit sand on an Arabian steed. The finest horses brought
back from the Crusades as foals and broken in on British soil.
Or would you prefer Anglo-Saxon? Maybe
this is an Anglo-Norman romance.
Who the fuck cares?
Because we are now headed to the castle, built on the backs
of British stones, gilded with emeralds from India, rubies
from Myanmar, a foreign enemy guarding against
more immediate enemies.
Anyway, we cross the drawbridge. We follow the messenger
through halls draped with tapestries woven with silk
from Spain. Into the great hall, where the king
and all his merry knights are feasting.
There are enough spices in the stews, soups, roasts,
plundered, robbed, ripped,
from Malacca, the Maluku islands, Cathay.
Spices that their descendants,
five hundred years later, would choke on.
So much for tempering the humours. Anyway, the messenger
calls them to war—the Pope, again. He has too many men
who are restless, causing trouble in the capital.
The women pretend to cry but thank fuck for that because
No men means no children, no children means no dying in childbirth
despite the Trotula, even all the skill of Ibn Sina cannot change
this fate. Across the sea, men bleed. Men die. They call it
a crusade, they call this land holy. When they are tired
they rake the land for treasure, gold, silk, spice. Souvenirs
stained with salt tears, bled dry of lustre, of any kindness.
When the Islamic princess boards a foreign ship,
she recoils from the hands of her white saviour,
says goodbye to the only home
she has ever known: this is not submission,
this is survival.
_________________
Kwan Ann Tan is a writer from Malaysia. Her work has previously been published in The Offing, Joyland Magazine, and Sine Theta Magazine, amongst others. You can find her at kwananntan.carrd.co or on Twitter: @KwanAnnTan.
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Deadline: 28 February 2023
Pandan Weekly is a weekly email series and website promoting hearty bite-sized writing from Asia and the diaspora. We want writers to share the stories behind their stories, and for readers to have a deeper appreciation of the works by understanding the authors’ perspectives.
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Your writeup about the piece should not be longer than 300 words.
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Words from the publication about your piece are more than welcome. These can be tweets, other social media posts, or appraisals in the acceptance email; if you’d like you may request a blurb from the publication.
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If any, please also include content warnings.
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Name of publication
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Date your work was published (you can give the month + year if you don’t have the day)
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Audio recording of you reading your work. Files should be in mp3, FLAC, WMA, or wav formats. Begin by stating the title of your work and your name. You can read an excerpt if the piece is fairly long.
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Your third-person bio, maximum 100 words.
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Submit all requirements to this Google Form.