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'Where is home? Where is my place? Would I feel at home in the place of my ancestors, or is my place this invaded, colonised country, where I’ve mostly lived? In these poems, I journey to Scotland, to the moors of Northumberland, seeking a genetic thread. I think I’ve found my people, ‘but it was only the whiskey’. Home again, through rivers, the lake and the sea. The dry bush, Queensland, are washed in images of water. I dig at the roots of colonisation, the blackbirder William Boyd, who left his mark on a coast that I love, a wild, quiet place with a violent history. A centre, a heart-place is identified, only to be devastated by fire and flood, the onslaught of climate change. Virginia Shepherd’s illustrations, her strange primordial fish, are a pause, a counterpoint, a reflection on nature and transience.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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An Exquisite Subtlety: Annee Lawrence Reviews ‘What the River Told Me’ by Jane Skelton
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , no. 33 2021;
— Review of What the River Told Me 2021 selected work poetry'In Jane Skelton’s What the river told me there is a strong connection to place, landscape, the natural environment, and the human trace on it.' (Introduction)
-
An Exquisite Subtlety: Annee Lawrence Reviews ‘What the River Told Me’ by Jane Skelton
2021
single work
review
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , no. 33 2021;
— Review of What the River Told Me 2021 selected work poetry'In Jane Skelton’s What the river told me there is a strong connection to place, landscape, the natural environment, and the human trace on it.' (Introduction)
