Personal and Profane is a collection of poems to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first collection of Malaysia’s most celebrated poet in the English language, Cecil Rajendra. Most of that celebration is ignored in his homeland. He is passionate about human rights in his poems and he is a lawyer. This finds little favour with the authorities in his homeland.
From Cecil’s 23 collections of poems, only three have been published in Malaysia.
This is an exquisite introduction to the variety of his poetry. Despite Rajendra’s human rights advocacy, this collection shows him to be self-deprecating, witty, romantic, and puzzled.
