Moving House and other Poems from Hong Kong - Abridged

Summary

The old is contrasted with the new, fictional with actual life. Links are made between different cultures, different lives, different experiences. The expatriate life-style of constant movement runs parallel with the title of the book.

 "Gillian Bickley writes as she responds to everyday events, always with the echo of 'time's winged chariot' in her ears. The fact of moving house sends her speeding back through the moves of a lifetime and forward to the last move, to the small room of the grave. The opening poem suggests the elusive presence of the author, and the deeper themes glimpsed through her deceptively simple poems. The variety of human life and the individual response to life, these are Gillian Bickley's central interests. The power that invigorates the poems in Moving House is the control of language. In this bare, tight poetry, no idle words are allowed. Its vocabulary draws on the base language of essences and epiphanies. The chosen spare language is the perfect partner for this poetry of mature experience." — Emeritus Professor I. F. Clarke and M. Clarke.

"The poetic observations of a sensitive writer responding to the reality of being alive." "Insightful probing into the darker issues of our lives . . . to make sense of human experience." — Paul Bench, Speech & Drama: Journal of the Society of Teachers of Speech and Drama.

"A privileged view into the emotional, intellectual and spiritual life of its writer." "The profound intimacy of the personal poems, reflecting universal truths about the human condition, renders the reader at once intruder and confidant." — Solveig Bang, Sunday Morning Post.

"Bickley's delicately-crafted poems are faithful word portraits of various aspects of Hong Kong at the turn of the millennium: its landscape, its people, its myths and spirits." —Tammy Ho, Asian Review of Books.