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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'When an inland tsunami floods the foothills of a mountain city, a woman survives the inundation of her home, alone. This edgy, potent verse novel circles the scene like the cadaver dog whose work it is to search for those who are missing. Reimagining traditions of bush gothic and outback horror, Luke Best crafts a terrifying and acute psychological portrait of grief and guilt. Loss, cowardice and trauma pulse through this singular and uncompromising narrative of ecological and personal disaster.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Dedication: For Bianca, Cooper, Stella and Asher
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Epigraph: They feel but the pain of their own bodies and mourn only for themselves. - Job 14:22
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A novel in verse form.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Numinous Wellings : Three New Poetry Volumes
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 427 2020;
— Review of Cadaver Dog 2020 single work novel ; Thorn 2020 selected work poetry ; Some Sketchy Notes on Matter 2020 selected work poetry'In 1795, Friedrich Schiller wrote: ‘So long as we were mere children of nature, we were both happy and perfect; we have become free, and have lost both.’ For Schiller, it was the poet’s task to ‘lead mankind … onward’ to a reunification with nature, and thereby with the self. Central to Romantic thought, reimaginings like Schiller’s of Christian allegory, in which (European) humans’ division from a utopian natural world suggests the biblical fall, strike a chord in our own time of unfolding environmental catastrophe. Against such an unfolding, three new Australian books of poetry explore the contemporary relationship of subject to place.' (Introduction)
-
Numinous Wellings : Three New Poetry Volumes
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December no. 427 2020;
— Review of Cadaver Dog 2020 single work novel ; Thorn 2020 selected work poetry ; Some Sketchy Notes on Matter 2020 selected work poetry'In 1795, Friedrich Schiller wrote: ‘So long as we were mere children of nature, we were both happy and perfect; we have become free, and have lost both.’ For Schiller, it was the poet’s task to ‘lead mankind … onward’ to a reunification with nature, and thereby with the self. Central to Romantic thought, reimaginings like Schiller’s of Christian allegory, in which (European) humans’ division from a utopian natural world suggests the biblical fall, strike a chord in our own time of unfolding environmental catastrophe. Against such an unfolding, three new Australian books of poetry explore the contemporary relationship of subject to place.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2021 shortlisted ASAL Awards — Mary Gilmore Award for a First Book of Poetry
- 2021 shortlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2020 highly commended Anne Elder Award
- 2019 winner Queensland Poetry Festival Awards — Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript
