Shortlisted for the ACT Book of the Year
Like most of his generation, Stephen Kelen has been a great traveller so it is not surprising that he has written many poems dealing with life in countries outside Australia. While there are poems here dealing with many parts of the world, there is a particular focus on the US and on Vietnam. In his travel poems Kelen is less interested in the natural world than in the man-made one and those who inhabit it: their lifestyles, beliefs, histories, and how these have both changed over time or resisted change. And, as always, he surprises us with his highly individual take on the familiar as well as the exotic.
This is startling and vigorous poetry from a writer who takes head-on the complexities of contemporary life. A sharp-focussed observer who has travelled in many countries, particularly in South-East Asia, he surprises the reader with sometimes disturbing, but always enlivening insights and by the rapidity of his thought-changes from the comic to the tragic. Rosemary Dobson
"Kelen is a poet with courage enough to take on contemporary culture and public concerns and claw back some of poetrys old territory annexed by modern media." - Chris Mooney-Singh (Read the full review here)
