AustLit

'Michael Dransfield was one of the most widely read poets of his generation. He was prolific, producing over a thousand poems in his short life, which ended tragically in 1973. This book concentrates on one of his most tangible creations - Courland Penders, his imaginary ancestral home somewhere in rural Australia. The ghostly house and its grounds recall the glory of the past, but they are also Dransfield's way of placing himself in space and time, then and now. To illustrate how this fictitious country estate came into being, the author uses analysis of the Courland Penders poems coupled with an informed and researched social history of the actual places where both he and the poet once lived, on the shores of Botany Bay. In gradual overlays, ghosts from Michael Dransfield's childhood Sydney appear amid trees, sandy grasslands, dusty corners, curtains and windows, while a heavy door opens to a parallel reality."' (Publication summary)