Kay Syrad What is Near

(P]oems like delicate essays, in the sense of attempts-circling, being-with, tentative and tender (...] poems like seed heads, fragility and delicacy, balanced, a symmetry (...] seeding more thinking (... a tender] engagement with moss, air, horizon, the political, the scientific, the human, the non-human and the spaces-between where these things meet. The space on the page, within the poems, and between the poet writing and the world observed, is so delicately balanced. - Dr. Kim Lasky slow build inside/outside what is left unsaid what is beneath what is noticed what is undeclared what evolves, enmeshes, becomes, denies visual-like camouflage like a movement-eyes dance on page, not sure where to go feeling accumulate through pattern of words - many unsaid, but felt What is near talks about what is far-deep time-what is within-unsaid earth suffering earth joy, despite it all - Chris Drury (an exploration of] the political, the specifics of natural things (eg. birds, moss, trees, landscape), boundaries and spaces; and the sense of place, all with sensuality and infinite sensitivity, including the self and its relationship to nature. We were especially aware of how (the poems] handle the very contemporary sense of language with all its problems of reference (exploring] the interconnectedness of all things through linguistic and visual means. - Professor Peter Abbs & Dr. Lisa Dart