AustLit

'I always dreamed of being a writer. In the solid, stable, predictable provincial town where I grew up, it felt as if I was always waiting for something to happen. There was a wide river that moved slowly through the centre of my world, yellow-green parks lining the banks where banyan trees grew side by side with gums, the broad streets with deep verandahed shade. The town was fringed by cane fields and forestry plantations. Daydreaming and writing poetry, I found, were ways to not only navigate daily life, but to reimagine it more boldly. I wrote poetry in A3 scrapbooks, illustrating the opposite page with drawings in coloured pencil. A dreamy pastel light of possibility shone through the west-facing windows in the afternoon as I sat cross-legged for hours at the coffee table on the yellow shag-pile carpet. Some of the poems from those years are quite fantastical.' (Jane Frank, Editorial introduction)