'An exploration of the author’s abiding interest in the nature of time, memory, the force of the past, and the promptings of nostalgia. His speculations touch on notions of the past’s ‘reachability’, the question of fate and free will, and more implicitly on the impulse to faith and transcendence. The discussion is counterpointed with a range of examples from his poetry in which these concerns are foregrounded or implied.' (Publication abstract)