Chandran Nair
Singapore: Ethos Books, 2010
ISBN: 9789810867171
Chandran Nair's poetry has been described as impressing with its "versatility and hard brilliance of style" as well as providing an important study of how growing up in Singapore with an English education and Chinese, Indian and Malay influences shape points of view in poetry in English. The poems reveal a real and not "a revolving man" in the words of one reviewer, while another feels that the poems succeed not merely through technical competence but also because "he writes with feeling. It is his feelings that we see most of the time, a kaleidoscope of changing emotions and events through which Mr Nair stands unchanged, unyielding and uncompromised."
The 101 poems in this collection represent two volumes of poetry, Once the Horsemen and Other Poems (1972) and After the Hard Hours, This Rain (1975)as well as poems since published in journals and anthologies in many countries and not collected into book form. They provide an interesting glimpse into the post-colonial literature in English of Singapore and Malaysia.
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