AustLit

Mateer writes: ' Burning Swans is a glimpse of iconoclasm, a moment through which an antipodean symbol burns with the light of an individual's past and an adopted country's ahistorical present. The disturbance in the poems is a recognition of loss. Personal relationships replace the abstraction of belief. Images are nourished by blood's pneumonic emotion. And energised by the charcoal after-image of words.'

'In his first collection of poems, John Mateer restlessly visits the tensions between past and present, himself and others, language and its loss. Experimental and frequently personal in approach, ranging from short lyrics to the sustained exploration of ideas, Burning Swans shows an exciting young poet at the beginning of his writing life.(From the inside cover of the work).'

'The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry is a comprehensive survey of the state’s poets from the 19th century to today.

'Featuring work from 128 poets, and accompanied by biographical notes and an introductory essay by editors John Kinsella and Tracy Ryan, this watershed anthology brings together the poems that have contributed to and defined the way that Western Australians see themselves.' (Publication summary)