Collected Poems

Collected Poems Synopsis

This book collects all the poems published by Andrew Taylor since his first book appeared in 1971, together with a substantial section of new work, and confirms him as one of Australia's most original and individual poets. The poems range through explorations of personal and family relationships, encounters with a wide variety of landscapes and cultures, and social and political issues. A strong sense of mortality is balanced by a delight in the details of the physical world, a fascination with everyday objects, and a belief in the regenerative power of love. Poems for children and aging or dying parents explore the hopes and possibilities of the future for the young, and the significance of a lived life for the old and those who survive them. This poetry is firmly located in the physical world, often in specific landscapes and places, ranging from the coastlines of southern and western Australia to numerous places in Europe and the USA where the poet has lived. Although many of the poems are short and meditative-lyrical, there are also several extended sequences, including one of book length written during the absence abroad of the poet's wife. Other sequences explore this relationship within a variety of geographical and historical contexts, and the importance of the beach, the coast and significance of living on an island-continent for the poet's youth and middle age. Both the physicality and the ephemerality of the physical world are given meaning and illumination by the lives lived within it, in a language that is lively and confident, yet also aware of how the richness of the world inevitably evades its grasp.