Dance-Floor Romance

Plot a lifetime of joy. Begin with a niece discovering how to dance; end with a poet weeping happy tears next to water. — from ‘On joy’ Unfolding in the strobe-lit landscape of the club, this latest collection from Chris Tse reflects on joy, nostalgia and legacy – and what it means to make a vocation of vulnerability. Words hit the page like light on a mirrorball as Tse takes us from come-up to comedown, between the spotlight and the shadowy corners, penning both sadbangers and straight-up bangers that are generous, alive and shot through with the magnetic urgency of a club classic. But when the lights come up after the last dance, how do we brace ourselves to face the world outside? Dance-Floor Romance is poetry that seeks answers from the art we turn to in times of uncertainty, that ‘Holds the present as much as it / holds a whisper of the future’, and amplifies it. Someone hand Tse the AUX cord.