Giving Ground

Giving Ground refers to an act of yielding, or compromise—an active passivity, not unlike the act of writing itself. In his third collection, Theophilus Kwek enters and examines the unfamiliar, giving himself over to the power of place to transform thought and language. At the same time, he gains new ground, finding other homes and histories that change the way he sees his own city.

„Poem after poem brings back reports of the world out there in arresting images that subtly but inexorably provoke thoughts of where and what home is.”
– Boey Kim Cheng

„These warm, Anglophilic poems are large of heart and hold the ocean of a young earth that is feeling its every ripple.”
– Gwee Li Sui, poet and critic

„Here is the ‘heart’s geography’ ('Edinburgh'), a search for meaningful connection on a journey that delights and inspires.”
– Lavinia Singer, Editor, Oxford Poetry