Cirrus@Austlit

'Shouldering Pine is a book-length nature poem that is also a critical meditation on the pastoral. Specifically, the concept of the natural world as inherently calming or peaceful. It interweaves the anxieties of the personal and immediate with those of the collective and long-term. The book touches on general anxiety disorder, grief, climate change and the coronavirus pandemic. It is written in a minimalist fashion and can be consumed in one sitting. The idea is for the reader to feel out of breath, but for the experience to be over relatively quickly, like a panic attack. Alternatively, the reader can dip in and out as though each page is an individual poem. Importantly, the speaker’s trauma is never explicitly stated: alluding to the difficulty in finding anxiety’s source and pushing back against what’s been identified as ‘trauma porn’. Human, open and wise, Shouldering Pine is unique in contemporary Australian poetry for its understated virtuosity, humour and relentless clarity.' (Publication summary)

'Indigenous literature has been one of the top-performing categories for local booksellers in 2019, and international publishers are noticing a similar increase in interest for books written by Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander authors.' (Introduction)

'Flat Exit is about greetings and departures, learning to let go and circle back to pick up what remains. These poems jump between north-eastern Victoria and Melbourne, romantic and platonic relationships, moments of personal triumph and those of shellshocked grief.

'Collected here in this sequence, they explore the dislocation that occurs when moving from regional Australian to its urban mass, and when falling in and out of love for the first time. The poems revolve from homesickness, to self-care, to finding a soul to complement my own at an unexpected time and in an unexpected place – and life before and after the death of a close friend.

'Many of these poems are autobiographical; some are fiction. My intention is not to be confessional but – as Gwen Harwood says – to establish 'a way of seeing'. Mine, as it's been so far.' (Publication summary)