Andrew Barker
'This is impersonal poetry. Nothing here is about me.' Using the established poetic forms of the villanelle and thesonnet, 'Snowblind from my Protective Colouring' gives us dialogues from many characters, some imagined some real, as they confront and express their lives and relationships. From the un-named She and He of ’Everything in Life is Contagious’ who address with romantic imagination or a merciless realism, their declining relationship in contrasting, rhyming villanelles, to the free-verse, final confrontation between Edie Sedgwick and Andy Warhol in ’Broken Muse’, to the various titular individuals presenting their lives’ dilemmas in Petrarchan or Shakespearian sonnet, this poetry collection is both a celebration of the possibilities of the forms it uses and a compassionate analysis of contrasting human viewpoints. 'Nothing here relates to my own view, / Except to say, this is how I see you / Except to say, from what I’ve overheard, / This is how I see the world.' Andrew Barker holds a PhD in American Literature, an MA in Anglo Irish Literature and a BA in English Literature. He has taught Literature at the University of Hong Kong, Baptist University, the Open University and for HKU SPACE. 'Snowblind from my Protective Colouring' is his first collection of poetry. He lives in Hong Kong. 3
