Cirrus@Austlit

In an accompanying biography, Tredinnick writes: ' "Annandale Nocturne" comes from a time (in 2006-07) when we were living in a terrace in Annandale Street. We'd moved there from Katoomba, and we never quite settled in the city, and even as I wrote this poem we were thinking of moving to the country again. The best part about that house was the view toward the city from the upstairs bedroom, especially at night. I wrote this poem after reading some Raymond Carver poems, struck by their beautiful plainness. "Annandale Nocturnes" was an attempt to write, out of my vernacular life as he wrote out of his, a kind of everyday (everynight) epiphany. Unlike Carver, I worked the poem into a particular form (two casual sonnets, each made of seven syllable lines) because I find a certain loose mathematics helps me find a poem I'm listening for. Particularly after midnight. That time-when the house, and the whole world, it seems, is sleeping - is the poet's hour. It's mine, anyway. The poem's about night and love; it's also a little about the fear that inhabits both. But who can say what a poem's about?'

Written in Annandale in late October, 2006