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In this selection of new poems, Susan Blanshard intended this collection to consist of a continuous period of writing, between two winters. By happenstance and default, major events disrupted the seasons, paradoxically, and found poignant shelter in Blanshard’s poetry.
Certain inhospitable exterior moments the poet has chosen, become deeply human in context: melting ice floes, personal loss, displacement, the continuing five year drought, destructive floods, catastrophic bush fires, and the first, and second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By chance or choice, she catches and listens to it. Quieter Histories is the inward grace. Here, acknowledgement of the human spirit is evident, not separable, from her writing. Histories find shelter in the shift between techniques. Susan brings a variety of past worlds to life by reversing and elaborating traditional stanzas and bringing soothsaying echoes of historic form to light. As with previous works, epic book-length prose of ‘Sheetstone’, ‘Honey In The Blood, ’ and the poetry of Fragments of The Human Heart, Blanshard connects epochs of time with subtlety, elegance, imagination, emotional attitude, and notable sensuality.
Quieter Histories is a continuum of the dialogue with past and present histories, what is inherited, possessed and dispossessed; what is remembered and what is known. A passionate conversation that exists at the center of her poetry.
