'I became aware of Alison Whittaker’s first poetry collection, Lemons in the Chicken Wire, during the 2016 Queensland Poetry Festival. At the panel I attended, Whittaker wasn’t reading from her book but instead (like the other poets on the panel, Justin Clemens, Stuart Cooke and Natalie Harkin) she was presenting a poetic response to Dorothea Mackellar’s “My Country”.' (Introduction)