A Passing Bell

A Passing Bell is the culmination of a life s work. The poem skillfully takes the form of a series of classic Persian ghazals, a style perfected by poets such as Hafiz and Rumi, into a contemporary setting. The ghazal is a lyric poem often compared to the sonnet for its traditional invocation of love, longing and melancholy. Each line of a ghazal has two parts and resembles a couplet. The final line usually contains the poet s name, but Kane has reworked this tradition, and included his wife s name in the final line of each ghazal, making her absence ever more present. In 2013 the poet s wife fell ill to the devastating motor neuron disease ALS, and in 2015 she returned home to Australia to die. A Passing Bell begins at this tragic ending, and traces the poet s grief, from a time when he is so bewildered by loss he is shocked to be alive , to his return home, to the house he built for his wife in Australia, to reflect on his life and loss, arriving at a place where there comes a time every day when I travel backwards, as if against the tidal flow of my future . Kane s poetry offers luminous sorrow and the glimmering possibility of joy restored.