AustLit

'In this book of poetry, Kingsbury is where the poet has been based since he came from the People's Republic of China in 1991, the first time he came into extensive contact, and conflict with a very different culture and multi-culture.

'Covering a period of about 160 years from the First Opium War (1840) to the beginnings of the 21st century, The Kingsbury Tales serves up a poetic plate of multi-taste choice foods with choice tales, each tale represented by a poem, not longer than one A-4 page, told by people from all walks of life, including wives, concubines, lawyers, diplomats, students, professors, factory workers, mental patients and visitors, from a colonial and postcolonial point of view.' (Publisher's blurb)

'Tracking the developments of Asian diaspora poetry in America, Australia, UK and Europe, To Gather Your Leaving is a groundbreaking global anthology that explores new ways of looking at nation, culture, identity, and place. Gathered here are established and new poets who are émigrés, refugees, and descendants of Asian migrants, poets who straddle two or more languages, cultures, and places, and who question and complicate the notion of home in the age of global change and transnational crossings. The poems collected here, spanning over three decades and representing three generations, eschew straightforward answers to the questions of identity and citizenship, offering profoundly rich, diverse and moving perspectives on what it means to belong on this earth.' (Publication summary)