Author(s): Shevaun Cooley

Poetry

"An impressive and engaging collection...the poems are assured yetthey also bring out the often conflicted feelings that places can evoke:strangeness, beauty, loss, violence, distance, closeness, intimacy andindifference" - Judith Beveridge

Powerfuldebut collection by a young Western Australian poet.

ShevaunCooley was born and raised in the south west of Western Australia, but has beendrawn ceaselessly to the landscapes of North Wales, where she lived for a timein her early twenties. The poems are written out of the questions this dividedorientation raises - about what constitutes a home, and how we might find ourway there. Animals have an ability to home that seems both biological andintuitive. Do we have this compass too? In the poems it is the suddenappearance of wild creatures, the shifting waters of sea or lake or river, theway light falls over the scene, which points to what we are driven to hold, butwhich ultimately evades us. Other material, from the poet's own life -including, inevitably, heartbreak - makes its way into the poems as well, sincemany of these emotions arise from a sense of being unhomed or unsettled. Thereis also a fine intelligence at work, calling in mythical resonances, thetestimony of poets and scientists, and the resources of language, to sharpenthe poet's alertness to her surroundings.