In poems that range from the minimalist to the theatrical, Jane Simpson evokes the fascinatingly unfamiliar world of the Arabian Peninsula, where she found her preconceptions about Muslim women completely shattered. She writes of home and family with great tenderness. Choked forms wonderfully match the sensations of grief. In a synthesis of home and abroad, science and art, the poems reveal a compassionate, searching gaze in a world without maps.











A richly textured, poetic meditation upon the power and influence



of geography. … compassionate, lyrical and resolute.





- Siobhan Harvey





The poet's magpie mind and perceptive eye is ever coming across glittering facts and shiny images to hold up to her reader's gaze.





- James Norcliffe





The loss of a mother, and the loss of a city … the dance between East and West. How fitting that, as the work of a peacemaker, it concludes with a kiss.





- Bernadette Hall

Jane Simpson was born in England to artistic parents, but grew up in New Zealand. She has a PhD (Otago) in religion and gender in New Zealand (1939-59), and has articles in international journals and chapters in books. In the 1990s she taught social history and religious studies in universities in Australia and New Zealand. Her poems have been published in journals including takahe, Poetry NZ, Meniscus and Social Alternatives, and in a number of anthologies. Candlewick Kelp, a chapbook, was released by Poets Group in 2002. She currently works in Christchurch as an English language tutor and editor. Her adult son also lives in Christchurch and is training to be a teacher.