Cirrus@Austlit

'In this collection of poems, farmers, fathers, poverty-stricken pioneers, and people blackened by the grist of the sugar mills are exposed to the blazing midday sun of Murray's linguistic powers. Richly inventive, tenderly perceptive, and fiercely honest, these poems surprise and bare the human in all of us.'  (Publication summary)

'Little Book of Weather reflects Australians' fascination with the weather of their arid continent: those on the land watch for stormy skies promising to relieve the parched ground, or grieve the loss of the top soil to the wind; those in towns and cities wait for rain to fill up the water tanks and reservoirs. People appreciate the beauty of the snow, of mist in the morning or of light streaming through the clouds. The years come and go, often marked by events that become part of Australian folklore—the 1895 Federation drought, the 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia, the 1990 floods in New South Wales and Queensland, the February 7 2009 Victorian bushfires.

'The latest addition to the National Library of Australia's 'Little Books' series, Little Book of Weather features the work of some of Australia's much-loved poets, including Judith Wright, Les Murray, David Campbell, Mudrooroo, James McAuley, Banjo Paterson and Dorothea Mackellar, along with beautiful images from the Library's collection by Joseph Lycett, Edward Close, Ellis Rowan, Harold Cazneaux, Peter Dombrovskis, Olegas Truchanas, Katherine Nix and others.' (From the publisher's website.)