Description
In As Though The Gods Love Us, Goh brings a lifetime of love, despair and passion to his work with the skill of a master craftsman. Amidst some of the world's most exotic locales, he uses graceful and lyrical language to understand his world and to bring us closer to ourselves and each other. From Vancouver neighbourhoods to the tropical darkness of a night in Bali, Goh's sensibility touches both people and landscapes, ranging in tone from the epic and political to the intimate and personal.
Hailed as "one of Asia's finest living poets" (Asia Magazine), Goh Poh Seng published his first Canadian book of poetry, The Girl from Ermita: Selected Poems in 1998. As Though the Gods Love Us collects Goh's recent writings since his immigration to Canada. Honest and thoughtful, this is a collection that reflects Goh's experiences as a peripatetic physician who has become intimate with many of the world's cultures, most recently British Columbia's.
About the author
Goh Poh Seng was born in Malaya in 1936. He received his medical degree from University College in Dublin, and practised medicine in Singapore for twenty-five years. Goh's first novel, If We Dream Too Long, won the National Book Development Council of Singapore's Fiction Book Award and has been translated into Russian and Tagalog. His other books include The Immolation, Dance of Moths, Eyewitness, Lines from Batu Ferringhi and Bird with One Wing. His work has also appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies around the world. Dance of Moths and his poetry collections As Though the Gods Love Us and The Girl from Ermita: Selected Poems are available through Nightwood Editions. He lives with his family in Vancouver.
Excerpt: As Though the Gods Love Us (by (author) Goh Poh Seng)
As I Walk By
A premonition of fall already
informs this hot summer's day
although the small, small leaves
of the rows of tall,
old Chinese elms
lining Sixth Avenue
near my home,
have yet to commence their dance
which they do,
when they do it,
with such an old-fashioned
sedateness and grace,
that is so pleasing to watch
when the wind comes to woo.
Then the leaves will shed hoards
Of shadows onto the ground,
creating a growing umbrage
deep as the sea
in order to capture me
as I walk by.
The Fall Rain
Trees in our neighbourhood shiver in cold, grey rain,
last remaining foliage in a state of deshabille for late fall.
Streetwalkers working their beat on nearby Hastings and Victoria
are rain-soaked, shivering in flimsy, revealing dresses.
Each year I wonder, will they all survive the oncoming winter?
