Steep Curve

STEEP CURVE is a book of final father poems. Returning to Australia from Ireland, December 2019, the poet sees her active, independent father, almost 100, beginning to age. The two, initially uncertain what's happening, live together two and a half years, and during covid lockdown. They share the poet's childhood home, which her father built 65 years before. Her sole caring grows their relationship through physical and emotional challenges, anger, frustration, loss and love.

Drawn together in an intimacy few daughters or fathers experience, comfort for the poet lies in a practice she develops of observing daily 'one lovely thing'. Resulting nature poems are interspersed in the book. The loss of Ireland for the poet, drives reflections on place and 'home'. Additionally, past poems for her father are interleaved as 'backspaces', creating a rich picture of a long, loving, sometimes difficult relationship. Heartbreaking and tender, poems created with love and skill: this is the poetic narrative of their shared journey.