AustLit

'This is a collection of lyric poems of considerable variety exhibiting an unforced delight in language. It includes elegies, satires, love poems, comic works, and ekphrastic poems (many of which bring the past firmly into the present). Haskell's focus is much more on ideas and relationships, and the way the deepest meanings are found in ordinary life. And Yet... is structured in four sections: the first explores the aftermath of his wife's death; the second presents reactions to a range of overseas experiences; the third, more miscellaneous section includes satirical treatment of the hyperserious; and the book concludes with strong meditations on the nature of innocence and experience. The collection insists on facing up to the fact that our days do end, and yet it equally celebrates the possibilities of human life in the contemporary world, and notably concludes with a love poem.' (Publication summary)

'When thinking about the focus of this issue of Axon on ‘natural, environmental and epidemiological disasters’ it would be hard to go past COVID-19, not only because of its topicality but because it fits all three adjectives. The possible exception is ‘environmental’: while the virus is a feature of the very air we breathe, in many parts of the world it has reduced air pollution and opened up previously prohibited spaces to the animal kingdom. Monkeys run amok in Thai towns, dolphins leap higher than normal in the ship-free Mediterranean around Malta. For almost anyone alive today the virological crisis is the most extraordinary experience of their lives — arguably more threatening than any of the wars with which it is analogised.' (Introduction)