AustLit

'Dick Alderson’s collection presents a wonderfully accessible poetry that draws on memories and acute observation. “Skein” recalls holding “the soft thread” of wool for his mother “in an almost embrace”. His is a quiet, gentle nature poetry. He listens as a “windmill groans and wheezes”; showing his equal adroitness with simile and metaphor, ibis are “like old aunts doing a chore thoroughly” and lemons are “tart sacs shaped like tears”. When fruit bats fly with “a dull umbrella-opening flop and flap” we become aware of his frequent playfulness, Alderson’s bats an Australian version of Yeats’s wild swans at Coole.' (Publication summary)