'Urban Myths: 210 Poems brings the best work to date from a poet considered one of the most original of his generation in Australia, together with a generous selection of new work. Smart, wry and very stylish, John Tranter’s poems investigate the vagaries of perception and the ability of language to converge life, imagination and art so that we arrive, unexpectedly, at the deepest human mysteries.' (Publication summary)
'Alex Leefson is astronomy's glamour girl, in love with the satellite Europa and the equally unreachable Phoebe. Meanwhile, her husband Daniel mourns the demise of his marriage and his life. Full of Dorothy Porter's customary bite and sensuality, Wild Surmise is an engrossing duet between two passionately estranged voices. An intensely moving verse novel of passions and vulnerabilities, love and death.' (Publication summary)
'Cath Kenneally's poetry is unique: confident, discursive, witty writing driven by intuition and association and a doubting, quick intelligence. With a focus ever-shifting between local, global, present and past, familial and political, Cath draws you into her world with a compelling combination of emotional intensity and clearsightedness.' (Publication summary)
'From haiku to elegy, these poems move from the Greek Islands to suburban Australia and on to the timeless plains of the imagination. When the brilliant and haunting sequence poem Six Improvisations on the River was first published in England in 1995, it was described as 'weaving into the fabric of history a place for the artist as visionary.'' (Publication summary)
'“Lansdown uses words with masterly precision to paint things as we have not previously seen them, but as we may be tempted to see them henceforth.”
Rod Moran, Fremantle Arts Review
“At his best Lansdown is able to suggest very deftly and concisely the so-called ‘thisness’ of things …”
Geoff Page, Canberra Times
“No Australian poet is so often moved to celebrate as Andrew Lansdown is. His work brims with tenderness, wonder and joy, all qualities which are in short supply in the modern world of which he is an acute observer. Beneath his gaze common objects and every-day encounters glow with spiritual significance. Lansdown has few superiors as a technician: his use of sound in these poems is as striking as is their variety of form. This, his sixth and strongest collection, will enhance his growing reputation.” – Les Murray' (Publication summary)