AustLit

'Growing up on the coast, I felt like the sea and I were easy and old friends. The water framed my first two decades of life; smeared in sun cream and rash vests, my parents would take me to the beach on weekends where I would happily sluice myself in salted air and water. I realised later that I only ever knew the edge of the ocean where its fingers and toes gently touched mine. The one time I was caught in a mild rip, I was panicked-filled with the crystal understanding this was a stronger and fiercer swell than I had known. I knew the water’s strength in much the same way I know the universe is big: as a concept relative to my own smallness. Felicity Plunkett in her new collection, A Kinder Sea, seems to have no such reservations or fear. Her work reads as though she is immersed in the same deep place where the bedrock heart of the sea collects people’s daydreams and elegies. She speaks with penetrating insight and at times, a heartbreaking clarity.' (Introduction)