Cyborg Chimera (a Poetry Collection)

Cyborg Chimera, released in October 2009, is Bryant's first poetry collection. It centers on ideas of hybridity, the subconscious, dreams, programming, reality, and illusion. It contains 42 poems, some of which have appeared in magazines, journals, and websites over the past several years.

Table of Contents:

Dreamscenes:  Images from the Nightly Death

Morpheus

A Nightmare’s Whisper

FreeFall

Glassstorm 

Abandoned World 

Hatched 

Child’s Play 

In Exile

Cryogenics 

Orion Out the Window

Merlin

Real Life  

Bill Passed, a Fib

Fancy 

Programmed:  Coded Controls, Sequenced Solutions

Forty Winks 

Robotics 

Conviction

Under Foot 

Creature 

Dozer 

Enacted 

Watchdog 6.9.2

Unhand Me

Cyborg Chimera 

Avatar 

Not Programmed That Way

Herr Leibniz 

Automata 

Freewill:   Definition, Determination, Destination

Suffrage 

Sphinx-speak

Garbage In, Garbage Out 

Horrorscope

Generic

Double Helix

The Sacred, the Savage

Temenos 

Censor Censure Censer

Earthrise 

Gone Awry

Id

Dawn 

Insomniac

Shelly Bryant divides her year between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a writer, researcher, and translator. She is the author of eleven volumes of poetry, Cyborg Chimera, Under the Ash, Voices of the Elders, Harps Upon Willows, The Lined Palm, Pine the Passing, Numina, Nymph, Mulciber, Mortals, andUnnatural Selection, a short story collection entitled Launch Pad, and two travel guides, one to the city of Suzhou entitled Suzhou Basics, and another co-authored with Nick Land and Lily Sun, entitled Open Door Guide to Shanghai. Her The Classical Gardens of Shanghai is a part of the RAS Monograph Series, published by Hong Kong University Press.

Shelly has translated Sheng Keyi’s novels Northern Girls, Fields of White, and Wild Fruit for Penguin Books, and Death Fugue for Giramondo Press, Chew Kok Chang’s short story collection Other Cities, Other Lives and You Jin’s A Life in Words, Mum is Where the Heart is, and In Time, Out of Place for Epigram Books, Fan Wen’s Land of Mercy for Rinchen Books, Li Xinfeng’s China in Africa for HSRC, Zhang Ling’s A Single Swallow for Amazon Crossing, and Li Na’s memoir, My Life, for Penguin Books. Her translations of Khoo Seok Wan’s poetry were featured in the exhibition A Life in Poems by the National Library Board in Singapore.

Shelly has also edited a collection of speculative poetry, A Demon in My View (Alban Lake), and a haiku anthology, Equatorial Calm (Celestial Books). Her poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and websites around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions, including dark ’til dawn, Things Disappear, and Studio White • Exhibition 2011.

Shelly’s translation of Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls was long-listed for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012, and her translation of You Jin’s In Time, Out of Place was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2016. She was awarded a Distinguished Alumni award from Oklahoma Christian University in 2017.

Most of Bryant's poems fall into the speculative genres, including science fiction, fantasy, the surreal, mythic, and (from time to time) horror. Some of her favorite topics include the relationship between cyborgs and robots, space travel, and old mythologies made new.

There is an influence of Asia on much of Bryant's work. Besides her interest in poetic forms derived from East Asian traditions, such as haiku, tanka, haibun, and sijo, the focus in much of her work on the moment and imagery is closely aligned with traditional practices in traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean poetry.