A Rower's Song: poems by Steven Edmund Winduo

New Book from Manui Publishers (PNG)

Steven Edmund Winduo: A Rower’s Song (2009), published by Manui Publishers. ISBN: 978-9980-9919-2-8. 146 pages. K69.90 (US$25.86)

A Rower’s Song is the first self-published book of poems. This is my third book of poetry. In this book I reflect on the experiences of living in a fast developing city in Oceania, where the social, cultural, and economic landscapes are changing in constant tune to the postmodern pressures. A Rower’s Song describes the changing social urban landscape with all its problems, challenges, and hopes. In this poetry, I am the rower with a song to sing as I cross islands and continents.

Here is a sample:

Borrowed Lives

Our pockets are torn
Living in our pockets
We have fallen so deep down
Walking the dark smelly alleys
Of some cheap Asian backyards
Or standing everyday at the same spot
Seeing the monotony of life
Driving by on the same road
We see the crowd swell like locusts
Beyond limit at the bus stop
Emptiness drops from the sky
And blanketed our vision forward
There’s nowhere out of this, we declare
We have to borrow money
To go on living here
Our pay packet looks fat
Our bank accounts stripped
There is no savings
To help us through hard times
Our hearts cannot bleed
Our hopes remain intact
Our borrowed lives will continue.


The collection includes works published in various journals and anthologies such as Journal of Postcolonial Writing (UK), Savannah Flames: a Papua New Guinean Journal of Literature, Language, and Culture (PNG), and Writing the Pacific (Fiji) edited by Jen Webb and Kavita Nandan. I recited some of these poems in Canada (Alberta), USA (Minnesota and Hawaii), Fiji, and Papua New Guinea.

To order email me on steven.winduo.manui@gmail.com