AustLit

'Afloat in Light by David Adès is, as its title suggests, circadian: like a field of sunflowers, the lines of poetry face towards the light but are anchored firmly in the soil. At times, this is the parched dirt of the desert as in “Between Us” (45-48) which celebrates the sacred beauty of the dry interior of Australia; at others, it is the mud remembered from childhood as both wondrous artistic medium and wonderful plaything. Such imagery is foreshadowed in the opening line of the collection: “There was childhood: wispy residence of dreams, / of imagination, of possibility” (“We Are Fallen” 11).'  (Introduction)