Book Review: Small Bodies of Water

Small Bodies of Water
by Nina Mingya Powles
Review by Harriet

This book is so relaxing to read – despite the unsettlement that lurks beneath the pieces. It’s a collection of prose essays but the spacing and structure (the author’s previous collections are poetry) seemed designed to slow the reader into appreciating the rich, evocative language. The vivid descriptions of New Zealand’s coastal landscape and the Hampstead Heath Ladies Pond; the passages on Miyazaki films and the explanations of Chinese Hanzi as Powles learns Mandarin – it’s both sharply observed and dreamily moving.