β Scribed by Theophilus Kwek
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Theophilus Kwek's first UK collection is concerned with the individual and the collective stories that become history. The poems set out from formative moments in the poet's memory, to pivotal moments in the colonial past of Southeast Asia, and finally the political upheavals of the present. Hospitality, precarity, migration β these are some of the themes that recur as the poet makes his own journey from Singapore to Europe and back again.
Moving House moves on a big time and space map, from Icelandic tales to the Malayan Emergency, and more contemporary dramas. From the perspective of a Chinese Singaporean shaped by the collective traditions and histories described in this book, writing in Britain, the poems model a sense of openness on the space of the page.
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
Roberta Curling has lived her whole long life in the same comfortable Edwardian house. Now, following a serious fall, her anxious grandchildren try to persuade her to move to something more manageable. And as she prepares to leave, each thing she packs brings the past vividly to life again.
It may interest some of the readers of the JOURNAL to have a short description of the manner of moving brick houses from one location to another, as recently effected in this city. A good and substantial three-story dwelling, measuring 30 feet by 18 feet on the plan, and about 30 feet height of wal