AustLit

'SAMUEL WALKER GRIFFITH and I were both born in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, almost a century apart. As children – he at nine years of age and myself at four – we both undertook the long ocean voyage of migration to distant Australia with our respective families. As a boy, I would sometimes visit the towering monolith of Griffith’s tomb in Toowong Cemetery, not far from my modest Bardon home. Nearby Steele Rudd, the creator of the iconic Dad and Dave novels, was also buried. His father, Thomas Davies, had been transported to Sydney and thence to the Burnett for breaking and entering and shoplifting after being arrested in Merthyr in October 1846, only several months after the infant Griffith and his family had quit the town.' (Introduction)

'When I first encountered the name ‘Truganini’ as a young student of Australian race relations in the 1960s, she was to me, as Cassandra Pybus’s Preface infers, ‘an international icon for extinction’ (xvii). Into the 1970s, she had merely a post-mortem presence in my consciousness. I knew of her by what I then believed was her portentous absence: the supposed ‘last tragic victim of an inexorable historical process’ (xvii), before Lyndall Ryan’s monumental pioneering work of 1981 corrected that mesmerising interpretive slippage in my brain (The Aboriginal Tasmanians).'  (Introduction)

''Raymond writes of all he has loved in a backwards-travelling anthology that brings together the great events of Brisbane history and the small events of daily life. He writes about wars and extermination and convicts on the triangle in Queen Street. He writes about a possum like a "friendly lout" and boiled eggs and honey on the breakfast table. Old, wild love affairs begin and end in these poems. We meet Bob Dylan and remember Enid Blyton and creaming soda and afternoon matinees with Danny Kaye. It is a mixture of joy, sadness, rage, laughter and passion, celebrating a life that has been full of surprises. Give yourself a treat and read Reeling Backwards slowly.' - Sandra Hogan, author of With My Little Eye 

''With the mind of a historian and the soul of an artist, Evans turns his gaze back over a life lived large and fierce - determined to resist the hidebound milieu and humid statis of his home city, Brisbane. Reeling Backwards plays at the knotty edges of nostalgia, bending and folding time around place, while pausing to catch all the fleeting, sensory moments that make up an abundant life. Each poem is a skipping stone, a gentle disturbance, nicking the surface and rippling outwards.' - Melanie Myers, award-winning author of Meet Me at Lennons

''Careful readers of Raymond Evans's histories always sensed he was a poet at heart. In this collection, he demonstrates this truth. The poems, which "arrived out of the blue", are personal and historical - a moving lesson in how to understand who we are and where we come from - individually and collectively. Read and savour.' - Julianne Schultz, author and former editor of Griffith Review

''Raymond Evans writes of history, home and heart with wisdom and warmth. From an empty house to a childhood home filled with love. Travelling backwards through time across a life portrayed in sensuous images. So lovely to read - highly recommended.' - Edwina Shaw, author and editor of Bjelke Blues

''A rollicking ride...and fun! Piercing in its emotional description of intangible realities we can all relate to. Such powerful, astute observations about secrets of the heart, granting permission to own and acknowledge one's often discarded sensibilities - written with intellect and artistry. Bravo! Contemporary and enthralling!' - Sue Smithers, international model, actress and jazz chanteuse' (Publication summary)

''Each of these fifty-seven offerings is a tone poem that condenses intensely personal impressions into gems of language, accessible and inviting, surpassing the writer's previous, engrossing collection. The volume flows: The language is so vivid, the imagery so palpable, that the individual pieces spring from the page. They communicate, rejoice and recount without artifice, openly and clearly. Evans is to be envied.' - Enda Bracken, multimedia educator

''Storyteller and historian, Raymond Evans writes poems of fragile memories, from childhood onwards, that unravel into tiny little wonderful worlds. Read them out loud: There is beauty in the weight of the words - the way they reveal the persona of the writer, the way they unfurl around the tongue. An exciting contribution to Evans's development as an Australian poet of promise.' - Janelle Evans, artist, writer, film-maker

''Raymond's second book of autobiographical poems covers a broad sweep. Equipped with remarkable memory and a clear, observant eye, even as a child, he recalls life in all its hues: family, friends, lovers, heroes and villains - the best and worst that it has thrown his way... Imagining the writer carefully weighing each word here, I look forward to volume three as the poet (with his merry band of dancers) continues his journey, with all its sidetracks, upon the long road of life. Evans leaves us crying for more.' - Bruce Hawker, political commentator, writer, campaigner

''The poetic style is uniquely passionate, entertaining and unflinching in its honesty. Raymond succeeds in taking his readers even deeper with this latest work, catapulting us into a diverse and vivid dance of time. Oh, what a trip this is, in a variety of styles that never disappoint - from childhood wanderlust to authentic historical stories that are compelling and unapologetically raw. There is fun here, turbulent times and warm-hearted reflections: a seamless and quintessential treasury of poetry.' - Catherine Holdsworth, poet, singer

'"Raymond Evans is a poet with historical eyes. He gathers up our pasts with his own - youth and childhood, the old world and the new - in jewelled notes that remain long after reading. This is a gorgeous book.' - Kris Olsson, novelist, biographer, essayist' (Publication summary)

'This chapter is an examination of contested visions of a shared place. In the garrison city of Brisbane, Queensland, during the years of World War II, three notable female Australian writers, Gwen Harwood, Faith Richmond and Judith Wright, lived or worked in close proximity, although apparently entirely unknown to each other. This chapter explores the life trajectories of each within this timeframe, as well as the ways in which their writings depicted both their varied experiences and their differing impressions of the specific spaces they inhabited within a shared urban place, Australia’s third metropolis. The vectors of space, place and time are all intimately in play here.'

Source: Abstract.

'‘Raymond Evans’s poetry sings with lyricism. His poems melt and explode with love, lust and clear-eyed honesty, revealing the beautiful and brutal undercurrents of a passionate life.’ - Venero Armanno
'‘This collection offers a powerful and touching insight into the interior life of a well-regarded Queensland historian. Poignant childhood memories, everyday personal observations, commitment to truth in history-telling, the intricacies of love, involvement in humanitarian and political activism…these are all here, described in poetry that is authentic, unpretentious and fired straight from the hip.’ - Linda Stevenson
'‘Raymond’s poems provide an intimate glimpse into the challenges, hardships and sensual pleasures of a well-lived life. Sometimes they serve to illuminate one’s own experiences. At others, the poetry carries one away on a compelling journey. Their emotional provocation and illustrative skill fashion an evocative and hypnotic pastiche of writings that transport the reader to worlds far beyond the anticipated and familiar. That is what these poems do.’ - Em O. Tomasi
‘Lost in deep thought as I imagine Evans’s Bardon boyhood as he floats tin canoes down the neighbourhood stream. The detail commands that no stone is left unturned as magical adventures take shape and Brisbane beckons.’ - Fiona Foley
'‘Raymond Evans’s Half Century brims full of humble treasures. His fifty “personal and political” narrative poems take us on a journey through time and space - from the adventures of a Welsh migrant boy arriving in the raw new land of Australia; to the burgeoning sexuality and social awareness of a teenager exploring the freedom of the 1960s; to the grown man’s deepening realisation of his role in history, society, and relationships. All recounted with humour, compassion and wisdom. A delight.’ - Michele Seminara'  (Publication summary)