http://homepage.mac.com/shawjonathan/...

I find I'm fairly indifferent to the learned bits of this, mainly translations and imitations from the Russian, but some of the lyrics, especially the Aust Pastoral pieces, are extraordinary. The book was published posthumously, and it's hard not to read a number of the poems as being poignantly suffused with a sense of death as imminent. 'Crab', 'The Broken Mask' and the whole 'With a Blue Dog' section stand out for me in this first encounter. I want to put Campbell's 'five wants and a howl' right up there with 'helpless, naked, piping loud' as phrases abut birth. ( )