ABSTRACT
The contemporary poets of Southeast Asia bring to writing a cosmopolitan awareness of allusion and reference that aligns their best work with what is currently being accomplished by practitioners in English at the international level. Their role models are drawn not simply from their respective national pasts but from the virtual museum of world poetry. Most contemporary poets treat urban life as a mixed blessing. They evince little enthusiasm for the theme of nation building or the urge towards collective identity that preoccupied their predecessors. They are more interested in the consequences and implications of living in a world that is globalized and postmodern. The relation of writing to history might interest some, but many more are interested in the spatial dimension of their environments, and how that is transformed bymigratory displacements and relocations. Very little of their writing is directly political in its commitment, although much of it is ethically self-aware, and many profess admiration for poets and writing practices derived from regions where the responsibility of bearing witness to trauma and violence in the public sphere has been of paramount concern, as in East Europe, South America and the Middle East.
