Precarious

Minimalist, imagistic and often violent

Aparna Halpe's poetry captures the nuance of personal journeys through loss, dislocation and exile, foregrounding the collective history of a nation and a people fractured by the lived experience of racial, cultural and class based conflict Precarious traces the journey from the comforting confines of home, to the chilling, ironic spaces of an adopted city - Toronto. Fittingly, the poems broker an uneasy truce between real and imagined belonging, returning full circle to the point of genesis.

'Beautiful meditations on nature, myth, history, violence and longing. Aparna Halpé combines linguistic precision with poetic sensuality, to deliver a collection that will leave you 'looking for mermaids' while 'learning how to drown'.' - Shehan Karunatilaka

'What lingers after reading Aparna's poems is not just a memory of a dissected land or 'strangled ice' surrounded by words & music, but half light rain frozen between precariousness and unknown pain.' - Cheran

Aparna Halpé is a Sri Lankan poet who divides her time between Toront and Anniewatte. Her work has been published in various journals including CHANNELS, the journal of the English Writers Cooperative, Sri Lanka and POSTCOLONIAL TEXT. She holds a doctorate in English literature ffom the University of Toronto, and is a lecturer at Centennial College, Toronto. PRECARIOUS is Aparna Halpé's debut collection of poems.