Reaching Light: Selected Poems

Poetry. Edited and introduced by Devin Johnston, REACHING LIGHT selects from five decades of work by one of Australia’s finest poets. Readers of Robert Adamson’s books will have understood that this distinguished man of letters and major poet is one of the most significant gifts that Australia can offer the rest of the world. Specifically, the gift comes from the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney. This river that Adamson lives on, and from which everything is born, becomes in his work an archetypal water which everyone can relate to wherever they reside. From it he raises a universe. Adamson grows into the reader like a whole forest, slowly and deeply, like a whole nature. He deserves reading like you deserve breath. -Nathaniel Tarn Could it possibly be close to forty years ago when Bob Creeley and Robert Duncan first brought back the news about an extraordinary young Australian poet? I’ve avidly followed Bob Adamson’s work since those days, as he has probed the inner and outer landscapes of his environment with inspirited precision. ‘Praise life with broken words.’ Eye and ear, none better. - Michael Palmer