The Colours of Heroines

"Lydia Kwa's voice is drenched in memory. Speaking at several junctures, both Singapore-born and Vancouver-habituated, her poetry carries the pain and historic wealth of her passage. It murmurs stories, laconic, profound, stories that tell whole shapes of lives in a few lines. Family anecdotes, fragments of intimacy, life stories of friends - these poems open windows onto the compulsions that form inner landscapes. Equally at hom ein a finely cadenced erotic lyric or candid and multi-layered prose, her writing resonates well beyond the edge of the page."- Daphne Marlatt