China Suite and other Poems
Gillian Bickley
People, art and life. A record of a particular space in time. Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Sukhothai, Honolulu, Mexico City, northernmost Scotland, Andorra. Intimates and strangers. A mother and son seen for some seconds on a bridge in Shanghai. The emotions flowing between performer and conductor throughout a concert. The interpretation one creative artist gives to that of another's work. Gillian Bickley values the records we all make: — the heritage we may or may not preserve, what we choose to reveal of our lives, the constant interpretative understanding of the personal as well as the historical past, and the sacredness of memory. Here we find observation and reflection – on current affairs as well as people and places – and also the frisson produced by five "skulls" in a window, a funeral owl caught in hire-car headlights, and the realization that classical stories are re-enacted in our own lives.
" … a collection refined by the sensitivity and spirit of a poet who observes with the wonder and clarity of someone who is at once an insider and outsider. In her works, we see that Bickley's poetry has the ability to provide both spontaneous, on-the-spot immediacy and lingering, contemplative power…. Every city may have its gaps, ambiguities and unknowabilities, and the poet's intimate and candid reflections in this collection have successfully uncovered some of them." – Hilary Chan Tsz-Shan, Reviews, Asian Cha, February 2010 (Issue 10).
"You are lucky to have this poetry in your hand." — Karmel Schreyer.
"The poems in CHINA SUITE are unpretentious, direct, and even raw, like gemstones freshly dug out of a quarry. The psychological boundaries drawn to separate cultures from cultures, clans from clans, and individual from individual are utterly destroyed. An unnoticed observer, she trespasses ethnic taboos and social no-nos, and writes down whatever she sees without getting caught—in a graceful way." — Elbert S. P. Lee
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