One of the most enterprising, unusual and rewarding anthologies of the last year is The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, edited by New Zealand writer Tim Jones and Australian poet PS (Penelope) Cottier.

The Stars Like Sand shows us, in the work of the more than 80 poets included, much of that illimitable dark, as well as the flights of fancy and hope that can give brief and brilliant illumination. Seek out this book – admirable, and one of a kind.

I can’t argue with this collection; there is a lot to like about it. The editors put out an open submission call for Australian spec poetry writers and mined Australian poetic luminaries for a semblance of the fantastical, reaching back to Banjo Patterson. What we get is a collection of highly readable poetry, although there are two aspects: the purely spec, and the literary with a dash of spec. The latter is always the stronger.

For example, Boyle’s The Museum of Space (2004) is more about that big empty stuff that holds our lives than it is about the backdrop for rockets. However, we get this: “Why are water and sand always used to / measure time passing? They must then be the one substance— / what never gets dry, what never gets wet, the absolute embrace / that says, Wade into me.” For me, lines like that take my breath away.