Poetry Archive

Taiwan’s ‘return-to-reality’ trailblazers (Taipei Times review of ‘Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan’)

The following book review appeared in today’s Taipei Times: Discussions of identity in Taiwan are seldom clearcut. Viewed through the prism of the country’s democratization, things can be even more opaque. For those with rudimentary knowledge of these issues, this short book is no primer; indeed, even the initiated may find it challenging. But those […]
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The inside-outs of J.W. Henley’s ‘Migrante’

The last time Joe Henley signed a book for me, he made it out to his “colleague in debasement.” Sounding like a possible song title for his next musical project, this was surely an accolade. We had worked – individually, together – on a series of textbooks, and the process had indeed been soul-destroying. Never […]
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Working the fields: Wooster Group’s performance invites parallels with Taiwan’s indigenous folk music

The following piece appeared in the features section of today’s Taipei Times: Taiwan owes Kurosawa Takatomo. Without his efforts, much of Taiwan’s indigenous music would be lost. In 1943, while Aborigine soldiers were packed off to fight Japan’s war in the Pacific as part of the Takasago Volunteers (高砂義勇隊) squadrons, Kurosawa was recording the songs […]
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Verse Not Purse; No Green, Free Bean; Can’t Write for Toffee, Still Blagged a Coffee …

Though I sometimes still have the odd couplet or rhyme floating around my head (mainly the works of the late Christopher Wallace), I jacked in writing poetry a long time ago, mainly because I’m not very good. Not long after I got started with with this blog, I stuck up a couple of my better […]
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Dawdling Shoes

Children are natural poets. The title is straight from my eldest boy's mouth; the inspiration from every unselfish minute he gives me.
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Pangolin

A few years ago I was climbing up a forest stream in Miaoli with a kiwi pal and came across one of these fellows. He was dead but it was a really moving experience, which inspired the following verse. These guys are in serious danger of extinction, a very sad predicament for a fascinating mammal. Pangolin (2007) […]
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