Voice unaccompanied : poems

Abstract

In Philip Martin's first collection, the voice is unmistakably one voice, yet it catches up the tones of many, creating new figures, recreating others from myth and history, often with significant changes. A mother comes to terms with her daughter's beauty; Orpheus and Persephone loiter between world and underworld, neglecting their purposes; Saint Anthony at last repents of his celibate years in the desert. If one recurrent theme is that of loss, of experience missed or refused, the poems with their alert movement, their varied and subtle rhythms, their control and shapeliness, are far from dispirited. These are the signs of an imagination which, whatever its theme, is positive and alive. Such poetry, at once contemporary and ageless, makes a welcome contribution to Australian literature. Show more