AustLit

'The premise the author uses to make his very strong point against state interference and the decimation of a fragile environment is a two-section work of thoughtful poetry. In the first section, John Kinsella assumes the identity of the mythical Irish king Suibhne (aka Sweeney). Following in the footsteps of Eliot and Heaney, the author uses the character of Sweeney to challenge the authroities in his native Western Australian outback to realize the extreme mischief of ignoring the natural order. Sweeney affords a narrative that roams across the landscape, at once inclusive and outrageous.

'In the second part, taking the work of German Romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin and making versions of his own, Kinsella cleverly dovetails his own work and his obsession with the ecology of his homeland, with the single-mindedness of an eighteenth-century poet who was famous both for isolating himself for 36 years in a tower in the small town of Tübingen, and for producing works of enormous power and impact.' (Publication summary)