Islands of Disbelief

"The people I could have been multiply. I only walk to the sun in dreams."

Judith Steele's poems about childhood draw on Anglo-Irish heritage tales, fabled knights and the hero Cuchulain. (Neverland). From her first dream she sees the vulnerability of the world and the creatures in it (Bushfire Dreaming), the fragility of human and especially family relationships (The Child Remembers, Reflections, Rose Undaughter, Never Again, Gone). She observes contemporary Australia and its media (Chairman, Community Housing, The News, Diurnal, Night Lights), chronicles the journey of her body from supple youth to the fractures of age (Seapath, Bilateral Fractures). She observes her feet and how far they've come with her, observes the tangled relationships between tourists and developers and inhabitants of neighbouring Indonesia (Water Sister).

Throughout her work the human toil and moil is surrounded by the grace of the nonhuman world, tattered though it is by ever-more human encroachment. That last section of the book gazes clearly at the simple fragility of everything (To Peg, On This Summer Day).

& sometimes, "Boredom is going about someone else's business too often."