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y separately published work icon Afloat in Light selected work   poetry  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 Afloat in Light
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'From infancy to the last breath, David Adès turns a compassionate eye on humanity. He explores ambition, failure, love and loss with “the rich poverty of language.” – MIKE LADD

'This book, richly suffused with a personal metaphysics of light and dark, is an extraordinary meditation on the intricacies of affection and intimacy, loss and grief. Its graceful and eloquent poems possess a delicacy that might be written on the skin. –PAUL HETHERINGTON

'David Adès’ luminous and honest collection, Afloat in Light, is chiefly a celebration of fatherhood and of paying attention, utilising Simone Weil’s notion that ‘attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity’. The collection extends to existence and loss, and a discourse on motive and meaning. Maps and moral compass are never far away in such explorations and like all good navigators Adès consults the moon and the stars to guide him through emotional terrain that crosses the globe via Australia, India and the United States. Poems about connection and love—familial, intimate, parental and friendship—hold their weight of history via scar tissue and heritage to allow ‘a vast and full space to fill the maps of our lives’. Afloat in Light delicately balances that most crucial aspect of life—of how the ordinary is anything but. Adès is a poet that fully harnesses the verve of small miracles. –LIBBY HART (Publication summary)

Notes

  • Dedication: To Natasha, who had er way with the trajectory of my life and changed it completely, and to Orli, Sarai and Eitan, who daily take me where I have never been and would never otherwise have gone. 

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Crawley, Inner Perth, Perth, Western Australia,: UWA Publishing , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 9005752487252679589.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 100p.
      Note/s:
      • Published May 2017
      ISBN: 9781742589466
      Series: y separately published work icon UWAP Poetry Club Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2016- 10166627 2016 series - publisher poetry

Works about this Work

Craig Coulson Reviews Afloat in Light by David Adès Craig Coulson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , February 2019;

— Review of Afloat in Light David Adès , 2017 selected work poetry
[Review] Afloat in Light Rosalee Kiely , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Rabbit , no. 25 2018; (p. 116-118)

— Review of Afloat in Light David Adès , 2017 selected work poetry
[Review Essay] Afloat in Light Alison Clifton , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: StylusLit , March no. 3 2018;

— Review of Afloat in Light David Adès , 2017 selected work poetry

'Afloat in Light by David Adès is, as its title suggests, circadian: like a field of sunflowers, the lines of poetry face towards the light but are anchored firmly in the soil. At times, this is the parched dirt of the desert as in “Between Us” (45-48) which celebrates the sacred beauty of the dry interior of Australia; at others, it is the mud remembered from childhood as both wondrous artistic medium and wonderful plaything. Such imagery is foreshadowed in the opening line of the collection: “There was childhood: wispy residence of dreams, / of imagination, of possibility” (“We Are Fallen” 11).'  (Introduction)

[Review Essay] Afloat in Light Alison Clifton , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: StylusLit , March no. 3 2018;

— Review of Afloat in Light David Adès , 2017 selected work poetry

'Afloat in Light by David Adès is, as its title suggests, circadian: like a field of sunflowers, the lines of poetry face towards the light but are anchored firmly in the soil. At times, this is the parched dirt of the desert as in “Between Us” (45-48) which celebrates the sacred beauty of the dry interior of Australia; at others, it is the mud remembered from childhood as both wondrous artistic medium and wonderful plaything. Such imagery is foreshadowed in the opening line of the collection: “There was childhood: wispy residence of dreams, / of imagination, of possibility” (“We Are Fallen” 11).'  (Introduction)

[Review] Afloat in Light Rosalee Kiely , 2018 single work review
— Appears in: Rabbit , no. 25 2018; (p. 116-118)

— Review of Afloat in Light David Adès , 2017 selected work poetry
Craig Coulson Reviews Afloat in Light by David Adès Craig Coulson , 2019 single work review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , February 2019;

— Review of Afloat in Light David Adès , 2017 selected work poetry
Last amended 4 Apr 2018 11:37:46
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