Burning Rice

Book excerpt: Poems of such simplicity directness and sincerity, you feel past lives and future possibilities fully alive in them, cherished by the warmth of the poets regard. Ivor Indyk The poems in BURNING RICE pull you in with their sumptuous images and seductive memories. Eileen Chongs poetry is a gift of the interconnection of past and present, the personal and the communal. She has an astute ability to let objects and events assume emblematic implication, and she can incite the imagination through her remarkable ability to find the ore seams in everyday experience. - Judith Beveridge The colours, scents, tastes and textures of the variousness of generations are woven seamlessly into these poems. Eileen Chong creates compelling narratives that offer insights into love and loss, tradition and compassion. Her true gift is the ability to define, through memory and imagination, an almost tactile sense of place. A stunning first collection. -Anthony Lawrence