Undergrowth of Myth-making

'Alex Hand makes the ordinary extraordinary in his latest collection penned during the pandemic. He says himself in "e;Self-portrait"e;, "e;I find beauty in polished floorboards, and in our Brown Betty teapot."e; With an unusual abundance of time in lockdown, who hasn't found themself back in childhood with seemingly infinite time to contemplate a world now shrunk to the backyard and life's past chapters? An ache of time to contemplate the world's current quandary and seek answers from far-off times, with "e;Wristwatch hours disenthroned"e;. Hand is as attuned to nature as a Stradivarius under the fingers of Maxim Vengerov. The startling simplicity yet profundity of his descriptions of the everyday are often very moving, igniting dismay at what we've lost, and what we could still have. Friends, neighbours and family come alive, some from Hand's early life in England like "e;Mr Riley...in flat cap and bicycle clips"e;. I'm buoyed by Alex Hand's unfailingly optimistic spirit and love and gratitude for this life with all its unpredictable dissonances. As he puts it, the pandemic has wrought "e;the reseeding of community"e;. Would that it would it endure. There's so much music in what we thought was the mundane.' - Mairi Nicolson, ABC Classic presenter