The Poetry of Dennis Haskell

Abstract

These three poems vary in setting and partly arise from cross-cultural contact, but their main themes are universal. The Chiyang Coffee Café is a real café located in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. I don't speak Mandarin or Taiwanese so I used to go there to drink coffee, read without interruption, and watch the frantic traffic zoom near-by. The poem “Waiting” was written when I was waiting in the airport to leave Hong Kong, which I used to visit fairly often; I felt an affection for the place and could imagine its daily activities while I was waiting to leave it. Such activities seem ordinary to those involved but for that very reason I think them worth celebrating. These two poems are both meditations on places and the movement of mind they prompt. The third poem is an ekphrastic one drawn from an art installation at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. It presents details from the installation and its theme is obvious.