Autobiochemistry

‘A book of rare, complex beauty. Dearborn’s range is huge: from the mysteries and beauties of the molecular world to hard-earnt poems of family trauma, from complex love poems to a brilliant sequence based on the life of Virginia Woolf. Her miniatures - often small masterpieces - are built around deceptively simple but profound metaphors, the very bedrock of memorable poetry. Calmly intelligent on the surface, there is usually a fierce rip-tide beneath her work.’ - Peter Goldsworthy

‘This is deep play at work - Dearborn’s intellect is displayed hand-in-hand with her remarkable ability to connect the disparate in entirely natural, surprising, and pleasurable ways.’ - Eileen Chong

‘Dearborn’s trademark finely balanced, masterfully honed poems are vitally engaged with the world, and with our cycles of love and loss within it. Fans of hers will be delighted to find here the full-length versions of both her 22-poem sequence for the elements, “Autobiochemistry’, and the shorter but no less fabulous sequence on perimenopause, "The change: some notes from the field’. Dearborn understands that even a bald fact (scientific, medical, biographical), held and tilted just so in the right light, can sing with the resonance of dream. There are also nightmares here, as she deals deftly and devastatingly with childhood sexual trauma and the never-ending work of healing. A crucial and timely book.‘ - Melinda Smith