John Mateer is a poet and art-critic. He has read his work at various international festivals, including PEN's Free the Word in London. His latest books are Ex-white: South African poems, The west: Australian poems 1989-2009 and Southern barbarians. The poems here are from Unbelievers, or 'The Moor', a manuscript of poems on the Islamic and Arabic influence on the Indian Ocean region and Iberia.