AustLit

In his second collection Mateer's work ranges through lyrics of sudden insight to long performative poems of grieving. A questioning of communication, despair and love in its various forms combine with memories, perception and present exxperiences, making for poems that engage daily life with an awareness of the philosophic and historic. Concentrating on Perth, Mateer's vision records the blurry worlds of private and public space, of common and individual solitude, while attempting their dissolution. His tone is usually insistent and his strenuous voice, like his use of vivid and often disturbing images, allows him to write with an urgency that is confronting and uncompromising. (From a preliminary page of the work).