Cirrus@Austlit

'For once a month, in the several years before I returned to Australia in 2016, I met with a group of poets hosted by Michael Wurster at Coffee Tree Roasters in Shadyside, Pittsburgh, to discuss poetry. On any given month about ten poets would turn up for an in-depth several hours long reading and discussion of a poetry book selected by one member of the group on a rotating basis. When it was my turn to select a book, as the only Australian poet in the group, I inevitably chose a book by an Australian poet, all of whom were unknown to the rest of the group. This was in part to introduce the other members of the group to fine Australian poets, and in part to broaden my own reading of such poets. One of my selections was The Goldfinches of Baghdad by the late, great Australian poet, Robert Adamson, a book that was obtainable in the U.S. through its American publisher, Flood Editions. Each member of the group bought the book, read it, and attended the meeting to read poems from it and discuss them. It was the first time I had read a collection by Adamson, and I came out of my reading of the book and the detailed shared perspectives of other readings of it, with a deep appreciation of Adamson’s poetry.' (Introduction)

'There was 9 hours of footage about Robert Adamson’s works, his personality, and his effect on the contributors as individuals and the wider Australian poetic community. A ‘paper- draft’ was created first, the step where an editor writes a transcript, and from that text, is able to more easily pluck out connected themes, similar topics discussed, and then group them together. This was particularly interesting to do, as many contributors had different memories of the same moments of Robert’s life. The facts may be different, but the essence they were communicating was always the same. Keeping these contra- dictions and individual perspectives seemed important -- intentionally matching the correctly remembered facts side-by-side with the misremembered details -- in an attempt to elevate the work away from simple ‘reading the facts’ to a more human-centred recollection of a man, the portraiture of who he had become in the mind of others. In this sense, there isn’t one Robert talked about in this documentary, but twelve -- one for each person who spoke about him.' (Introduction)