Publisher's synopsis
This ground-breaking anthology collects poems written by Australian poets who are migrants, their children, and refugees of Asian heritage, spanning work that covers over three decades of writing. Inclusive of hitherto marginalised voices, these poems explore the hyphenated and variegated ways of being Asian Australian, and demonstrate how the different origins and traditions transplanted from Asia have generated new and different ways of being Australian. This anthology highlights the complexity of Asian Australian interactions between cultures and languages, and is a landmark in a rich, diversely-textured and evolving story. Timely and proactive, this anthology fills existing cultural gaps in poetic expressions of home, travel, diaspora, identity, myth, empire and language.
Adam Aitken was born in London in 1960, to an Anglo-Australian father and a Thai mother. He spent some of his childhood with relatives in Thailand, and was educated at a convent in Malaysia, before coming to Australia in 1968. Adam was Associate Poetry Editor for HEAT magazine and has published four poetry collections in Australia.
In 1987, Boey won the first prize at the National University of Singapore Poetry Competition while studying as an undergraduate. At age 24, he published his first collection of poetry. Somewhere-bound went on to win the National Book Development Councils (NBDCS) Book Award for Poetry in 1992. Two years later, his second volume of poems Another Place received the commendation award at the NBDCS Book Awards. In 1995, Days Of No Name, which was inspired by the people whom he met in the United States, was awarded a merit at the Singapore Literature Prize. In recognition of his artistic talent and contributions, Boey received the National Arts Council’s Young Artist Award in 1996. After a long hiatus, Boey returned with his fourth volume of poetry in 2006. After the Fire deals primarily with the passing of his father in 2000. Boey’s works have also appeared in anthologies like From Boys to Men: A Literary Anthology of National Service in Singapore, Rhythms: A Singaporean Millennial Anthology of Poetry and No Other City: The Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry.
Michelle Cahill is a Goan-Anglo-Indian writer who lives in Sydney. She writes poetry, fiction and essays. Her second collection Vishvarūpa was shortlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. She received the Val Vallis Award and was highly commended in the Blake Poetry Prize.
Her poems are anthologised in 30 Australian Poets, ed. Felicity Plunkett (UQP) the HarperCollins Anthology of Modern English Poetry ed. Sudeep Sen, Contemporary Australian Poets (Turnrow) ed. John Kinsella and The Yellow Nib Anthology of Modern English Poetry by Indians (QUP, Belfast) ed. Sudeep Sen and Ciaran Carson. She was a fellow at Hawthornden Castle and Sanskriti Kendra International Retreat.
