'Central to Andrew Taylor’s Shore Lines is a sequence of poems written during the bushfire season of 2019 and the subsequent Covid pandemic. During a period of national trauma, the poems find consolation in the powerful regenerative energy of the natural world. The setting of the beach suburb of Coogee reflects an ongoing interest in Australia’s coastline, which is also a central image in a number of poems that explore the poet’s childhood and family life. Several poems are obituaries for those dear to him, and others explore elements of personal and family history, including the consequences of his ancestors’ role as pioneers in the early settlement of Victoria. Many poems reflect an interest in natural phenomena such as landscape, the weather and, particularly, birds and, in the ocean, the whales that traverse the NSW and Victorian coast.' (Publication summary)
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Andrew Taylor : Shore Lines
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , no. 18 2023;
— Review of Shore Lines 2023 selected work poetry 'Although it might not be a word that one would want to use too much in serious criticism, Andrew Taylor’s Shore Lines seems a more secure book that the previous Impossible Preludes. And part of that sense of secureness might derive from the opening two poems that are something of a coup. The first, “The Grave by the Sea Called ‘Granny’s Grave’” could be described as a retrieved poem about a retrieved history. Written in 1981, it is about a grave on the Warrnambool coast dating to 1848 and said to be that of the first white woman to die in the area. It was subsequently either misplaced or deliberately omitted from Taylor’s later books. As a stand-alone poem it would certainly have been worth including in its natural position in the “New Poems” section of his UQP Selected Poems and was only “rediscovered” by local historians researching the matter of this early grave. It’s a very “Taylorish” poem, stylishly literary – it is supported at either end by allusions to Valery’s great poem about the cemetery by the sea – and meshing in with Taylor’s poetic obsessions in that this is a grave on the coast, on the meeting place of sea and land. If you live in South Australia, the sea is the Great Southern Ocean and many of Taylor’s poems celebrate its erosive effect on the soft rocks of that coast. Mrs Raddleston, the name given on the basalt headstone, died in the same year as the great uprisings of Europe, a rather different sort of erosion. “Mrs Raddleston”, leaving Europe either forcibly or by free will, “came finally aground on this great wave of sand” which is itself unstable since the wind and the sea are always threatening to move or overwhelm the grave.' (Introduction) -
Plover's Lament : A Celebration of Continuity
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 456 2023; (p. 57)
— Review of Shore Lines 2023 selected work poetry'Andrew Taylor has been an important figure in the Australian poetic landscape since his first book, The Cool Change, appeared in 1971. Identified with no particular group or aesthetic tendency, he has worked as poet and academic in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, and is now retired from teaching and based in Sydney.' (Introduction)
-
Plover's Lament : A Celebration of Continuity
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 456 2023; (p. 57)
— Review of Shore Lines 2023 selected work poetry'Andrew Taylor has been an important figure in the Australian poetic landscape since his first book, The Cool Change, appeared in 1971. Identified with no particular group or aesthetic tendency, he has worked as poet and academic in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth, and is now retired from teaching and based in Sydney.' (Introduction)
-
Andrew Taylor : Shore Lines
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , no. 18 2023;
— Review of Shore Lines 2023 selected work poetry 'Although it might not be a word that one would want to use too much in serious criticism, Andrew Taylor’s Shore Lines seems a more secure book that the previous Impossible Preludes. And part of that sense of secureness might derive from the opening two poems that are something of a coup. The first, “The Grave by the Sea Called ‘Granny’s Grave’” could be described as a retrieved poem about a retrieved history. Written in 1981, it is about a grave on the Warrnambool coast dating to 1848 and said to be that of the first white woman to die in the area. It was subsequently either misplaced or deliberately omitted from Taylor’s later books. As a stand-alone poem it would certainly have been worth including in its natural position in the “New Poems” section of his UQP Selected Poems and was only “rediscovered” by local historians researching the matter of this early grave. It’s a very “Taylorish” poem, stylishly literary – it is supported at either end by allusions to Valery’s great poem about the cemetery by the sea – and meshing in with Taylor’s poetic obsessions in that this is a grave on the coast, on the meeting place of sea and land. If you live in South Australia, the sea is the Great Southern Ocean and many of Taylor’s poems celebrate its erosive effect on the soft rocks of that coast. Mrs Raddleston, the name given on the basalt headstone, died in the same year as the great uprisings of Europe, a rather different sort of erosion. “Mrs Raddleston”, leaving Europe either forcibly or by free will, “came finally aground on this great wave of sand” which is itself unstable since the wind and the sea are always threatening to move or overwhelm the grave.' (Introduction)
Last amended 21 Jun 2023 10:10:27