Description
Book SynopsisTheophilus 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 – 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.
Trade Review'Kwek has a keen eye for poetic rupture and moments of collision. With formal dexterity, he shifts through family history and world politics, from British colonial rule to refugee crises and a moving tribute to soldiers killed in peacetime training' - Poetry Book Society Summer Bulletin 2020
