"Jane Wong's powerful first book OVERPOUR weaves together seemingly disparate topics such as war and child's play, language and exile, debt, animals and nature. By doing so, Wong creates a space between--for the reader to enter. At the same time, by creating this space, she makes a space for possibility. For instance, in her poem 'Filed Notes Toward War,' Wong writes 'The war is not over. / The streets are lined with little lamps of snow, / melting. Water pours without end. / There is a swan bathing in my mouth.' Montage-like, the poems are also a kind of philosophy by which I mean they are curious. They ask questions of the world. Not afraid of being earnest, Wong's voice is both playful and cerebral, weaving in and out of the world-- its wars and its violence, poverty and alienation--making a beautiful and smart, strange and new, word elixir."--Cynthia Cruz, back cover.