Eighth Habitation takes its name from the Buddhist notion of purgatory, a mystic realm where the meaning of human lives are judged. The poems inhabit a range of landscapes and perspectives, in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and China, with an empathy and understanding that suggests a consciousness imbued with an Asian sensibility. Blending the cosmopolitan, the traditional and the unexpected, in their accumulation of detail they register the dignity and resilience of a world recovering from personal tragedy and the trauma of history. -- Publisher's blurb
