Cirrus@Austlit

'It’s a great pleasure and honour to be here with you this evening, in celebration of the publication of Mark O’Flynn’s seventh poetry collection, Undercoat: Poems about Paintings. This is actually the third time I’ve had the pleasure of launching one of Mark’s books. Mark and I have known each other now for many years, after first meeting during the heyday of the (very tongue-in-cheekly) so-called ‘Katoomba Bloomsbury Set’ that gathered around the Varuna Writers’ Centre (as it was then known) back in the mid 1990s. It was at Varuna in June of 1996 that I launched Mark’s first book of poetry The too bright sun as part of the launch of the fourth Five Islands Press New Poets Series.' (Introduction)