Noongar Country in its various seasons, near and far, feature in these poems: summer afternoons at Scarborough Beach, rainy days near the Perth Hills, road trips through Ballardong Country, rooftop views over Northam. Poems of grief live alongside poems of contentment, exposure alongside shelter, roads alongside tracks, and creeks. These poems take you cloud-watching and train-riding, through worlds inside and out. The banksia features here too: in yarning circles the dried cone is lit and passed from person to person, an emblem of sharing and listening. Memory and emotion live in these pages, committed to paper by seven individuals discovering their voices in this form, and finding that it’s strong.

The poems are emanating out into the world. The banksia is lit.