This anthology includes selected works of some of the most active and dynamic contemporary poets writing in North America. Reflecting to varying degrees sensibilities based on ancestral Asian homelands and on lives in Canada and the United States, the poetry reproduced here is of a wide-ranging appeal and refreshing modernity, depicting a shifting, kaleidoscopic landscape of cultural and spiritual heterogeneity and individual interpretations.

Including poetry by:
Meena Alexander, Agha Shahid Ali, Himani Bannerji, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Sadhu Binning, Marilyn Chin, Madeline Coopsammy, Rienzi Crusz, Cyril Dabydeen, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Ramabai Espinet, Lakshmi Gill, Kimiko Hahn, Garrett Hongo, Kevin Irie, Sally Ito, May Seung Jew, Surjeet Kalsey, Joy Kogawa, Mina Kumar, Carolyn Lei-Lanilau, Wing Tek Lum, Bhargavi Mandava, David Mura, Suniti Namjoshi, Michael Ondaatje, S Padmanab, Uma Parameswaran, Sasenarine Persaud, Ian Iqbal Rashid, Carol Roh-Spaulding, Gerry Shikatani, Cathy Song, Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta, Suwanda Sugunasiri, Arthur Sze, Nguyen Chi Thien, Asoka Weerasinghe, Rita Wong, Jim Wong-Chu

Cyril Dabydeen has published more than a dozen books of prose and poetry in the United Kingdom and Canada, including the novel Dark Swirl and the story collections My Brahmin Days, Black Jesus and Other Stories, and Jogging in Havana. The City of Ottawa appointed him Poet Laureate in the mid-1980s and granted him the first Award of Excellence for Writing and Publishing. He lives in Ottawa, Ontario.

Cyril Dabydeen's profile page

"...fills a gap in our perceptions of contemporary postcolonial writing."
- The Toronto Review