Trojan Gifts

Having reflected for many years on his motivation for writing poetry and the subjects that obsess him, Mark realises that his writing primarily involves memorialising and eulogising the overlooked and forgotten. Not only people but places and objects. He is driven by the weight of his forebears' historical loss. Loss of family, of identity, of homeland. This loss has been handed down like an heirloom.

Trojan Gifts explores these themes with depth and sensitivity. As Adam Aitken notes, "When ethics are fading, so too is our ability to see and attend to the care of other sentient beings." It's then that poets like Mark Mahemoff step in. Unwilling to let the casual cruelty (to man or dog, for instance) or the truth that hides under "the fresh mulch of denial" evade poetic examination, Mark's scrutiny of human behaviour is discreet and precise, befitting a poet whose working day is a constant test of compassion versus the brutal objectivity it requires. These poems are never moralising, but rewarding.