Cirrus@Austlit

'When I first read these poems, of course I wanted to know what the poet was referring to as having undergone the process of ‘shattering’. So much in our world which we previously experienced as continuous or self-evident, both personally and sociopolitically, has been fragmented beyond repair. Clearly, the poems in this collection speak to the shattering effects of crises in the lives of people, some intimately known to the poet, and some whose struggles are revealed through statistics which reveal the collapse of societal safety nets and social contracts that were held by previous generations to be sacrosanct. And these lived experiences, if not ‘swept aside’, but faced, especially during times of sudden change, can shatter our sense of self, our preferred beliefs, and our certainties.' (Introduction)