AustLit

'Here are over two hundred 'songs without sound' taking us through the chiaroscuro of human feelings and emotions, portrayed subjectively to reflect human mortality. Personal emotions are matched by more public concerns - 'We'd wreck less if we were less reckless' - and '09/11/01'; while the dark mood of such poems such as 'Barely Treading Water' is balanced by the beauty of 'Morning Song' and 'Fallen Angel'. Through eyes that rejoice at a new dawn or a stolen kiss, the outscape is sketched predominantly in grisaille, the figures poised in waif-like abandonment. Yet the author's abiding tone is positive as he surveys the foreshore of existence: 'Don't let this life's ride go to waste!' and 'Everything pales into insignificance when you remember love.' Full of rich cadences and rhythms, paragrams and wordplay, these are songs from the heart, and as such they touch off secret harmonies in all of us.'

(Publication Summary)