Cirrus@Austlit

'I am really honoured to be launching Paul Hetherington’s book of prose poetry, Moonlight on Oleander in this beautiful venue – it’s a bibliophile’s dream!

'I should say at the outset, I am prose poet and a prose poetry devotee, and this book is extraordinary because it pushes the prose poem to its limit – there’s nothing timid about Paul’s use of the prose poem form. He draws on its flexibility to create new and exciting varieties and approaches – from narrative prose poems with long, looping sentences (almost like long reels of film), to stark elegies which are taut and compressed in their lamentation, and sleek prose poetry sequences that grow with a kind of slow gestation to become something bigger than the sum of their parts.' (Introduction)