AustLit

'If the prose poem keeps its time across the sentence rather than the line, it also distinguishes itself from narrative as the lyric does, by sequestering narrative, with its relentless cause-and-effect motion, to a space outside the poem itself. Cannily situating the poems of Íkaros within the overarching context of a story so familiar most children know it, Paul Hetherington relieves himself of any obligation to provide narrative, and so allows himself to cast each poetic gesture adrift on lyric time, where the poems can operate in the realm of pure voice.' (Publication summary)