'The dark aura of Emma Lew’s poetry has made her a compelling and mysterious presence for successive generations of Australian poets. Lew is highly regarded for the dramatic intensity of her poetry, which combines sudden shifts of voice and perspective with a heightened awareness of the moment. Her mastery of the ominous setting and the resonant line, and her command of poetic form – particularly the interior monologue, the pantoum and the villanelle – draw on a deep correspondence between the figure of the defiant woman, volatile, dangerous, ironic, and the destructive forces of history. This selection brings together poems from her previous collections The Wild Reply, Anything the Landlord Touches and Luminous Alias, as well as twenty-four new poems not previously collected in book form.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
