likeness, by Jonathan Chan

Gamin, by Augusta Savage (USA) 1930

Gwendolyn Knight, by Augusta Savage (USA) 1934-1935

likeness 

after Augusta Savage  
​
how a face is rendered so: 
fingers melded to stubborn earth,
shaped with the tender trust of 
memory, the impress of a crumpled
hat, the gloss of youthful skin, eyes
sprightly, lips parted ever so slightly,
the quick shock of presence. at  

times without a folded collar: hair 
high, taut over a widow’s peak, the
curvature of nose and eyebrow, firmness
in the cheeks, the groove above a stoic
mouth, the sturdy contours of collarbones, 
naked, not nude. their faces, austere, 

worthy of unvarnished  
attention, unencumbered by the  
muck of phrenology, the few that 
breathe in polished bronze, the others 
swept in frailer dust, their guiding hands 
as tenacious and tender as clay  
allows them to be.

Jonathan Chan

Jonathan Chan is a writer, editor, and graduate of the University of Cambridge. Born in New York to a Malaysian father and South Korean mother, he was raised in Singapore, where he is presently based. He is interested in questions of faith, identity, and creative expression. He has recently been moved by the writing of Ee Tiang Hong, Md Mukul Hossine, and Ocean Vuong.