Abstract

The poems in this collection centre on travel experiences. The opening section touches on childhood memories, while the closing one considers the speaker's present home. The notions of home and willing displacement from it are present throughout the collection. The "North Bay" and "Echo" sections chart the disintegration of a relationship. The central "Terra Australis" section is a mosaic of Australia; a search for the place even as it is transformed by memory and some fragments are exalted to become emblems of longing. The journey to Australia also gives rise to "Caves," a sequence addressing the legend of the Jenolan Caves' discovery and their continually accumulating strata of myth. The final section, "Verdun," presents diverse views of a home which the speaker struggles to accept as hers; a place that is at once fantastic and mundane.