More Than Weeds

More Than Weeds, the debut poetry collection by L. Kiew, explores the language of migration and how it is used in relation to plant and animal species, as well as peoples. These knowledgeable and verdant poems draw deeply on botanical and ecological detail and reveal secret histories thriving in the gaps between definitions; here are precious seedlings, unforced flowers, tongues of leaves, tangled roots and rhizomes. With roots in decolonialising botany and horticulture movements, and influenced by the impact of the climate crisis and regenerative gardening practices, Kiew's poetry is alive and thronging with the interconnected nature of things - and the formative forces of nurture, family, food, refuge and love. Human and plant voices speak for themselves of experiences of belonging and displacement, as well as encounters with violence. These vivid poems that ask us to scrutinise what is really contained or constrained by demarcations - whether those of weed or wildflower, or of borders and hostile environments.

A chinese-malaysian living in London, L Kiew works as a charity sector leader and accountant. She holds a MSc in Creative Writing and Literary Studies from Edinburgh University. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet was published by Offord Road Books in 2019. She was longlisted in the 2019 National Poetry Competition and was a 2019/2020 London Library Emerging Writer. Her poems have been published in Brittle Star, Butcher's Dog, Finished Creatures, Gutter, Ink Sweat and Tears, Lighthouse, Magma, Shearsman, Tears in the Fence, The Dark Horse, The Scores, The North, Rialto, Under the Radar and Wasifiri among other magazines and websites.