Gardening on Mars

This is Australian poet Jane Frank's third collection of poems but her first in the UK. It transcends terrestrial boundaries, exploring profound connections between the natural world and human experience. Ranging from confessional and ekphrastic poems to surreal evocations of Australian place that express strong emotional connection, these poems maintain a rich dialogue with visual artists and writers of the past and present. Whether she is writing about hang gliding with Leonardo da Vinci, being lost inside a rainforest snow globe or witnessing a pinball game between galaxies, this is tactile and visual writing that bristles with striking language. Moving through her poems is like walking through a forest of imagery, layered and verdant, and is also an expedition through the fabled landscape of imagination and memory where love, longing and loss are familiar compass points. Her poems are often meditations on the joineries of life, the spaces where is meets was and might have been. The introspective is illuminating but there is also an understanding of the ways in which the poet seeks to garden her own life in the face of personal and planetary challenges. The poet is accessible, empathetic and yet displays masterful form and craft. She makes us want to go with her, share the journey, wherever it ends.

"Like a spirit photographer, she captures ghosts as a natural part of everyday encounters, intermingling the sacred and profane without getting bogged down in jaded nostalgia ... water engulfs most poems, even the insides of rooms, so that the outside flows in, the past drowns the present and lines are blurred ... the juxtaposition of beauty and horror are the strengths of this collection."  -Lisa Collyer, Westerly, on Ghosts Struggle to Swim 

"Her voice is unique and strong. There are so many different approaches to the white page in this book: complex, dense lines; jagged blocks of text zig-zagging down the page; short lines, giving the poem an opportunity to breathe; serene meditations in prose; stanzas of two, three, four and five lines. The variations refresh the eyes every time we turn the page." -Damen O'Brien, Rochford Street Review