APORIAC by Shey Marque

“Shey Marque’s Aporiac is awake to the extraordinary in our ordinary lives, ever sensitive to the changing nature of relationships and perspectives, and achingly conscious of the passing of time. Haunting and evocative, the poems in this collection tell small town stories that tread playfully and powerfully along the thin line between mundane and momentous. This West Australian poet paints suburbia and the sea brilliantly, each page deftly dusted with grass clippings and salty air. Aporiacis at once a delight and a disturbance.”

–Bronwyn Lovell

I wink, whisper behind my hand, confide in you my discovery

of that secret hiding place among the Bougainvillea. (‘Handstand’)

The poems in Aporiac ‘dance /barefoot … in the street’ and they are never without music. They play with images and ideas, but the language is always alive, resonating with memory, with land- and sea-scape, with worlds seen through the eyes of a knowing child: that clear, honest account which is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes amusing, but always perceptive. And through all the poems runs a strong thread of rhythm, of music and of language play. An exciting collection from a most accomplished poet.

–Ron Pretty AM