New new world

- the land of Australia and islands of Fiji Award-winning poet David Stuart Ryan takes you into the very heart of the Australian land and its presences in a vivid journey that includes over 100 original illustrations. Drawing on his Australian roots - his mother, grandmother and great grandmother were all Australian - the poet produces some new insights into the very nature of the land and its history. Illustrations of the native animals as well as its peoples bring this poetic journey alive and challenging in its depictions of the continent. The vast empty spaces, the pure colours, the ever present sun, are all here in surprising combinations hinting at a land altogether different from the common perception. Ghosts and vestiges haunt the landscape from forgotten times. They then find their way into some of the poems in this volume. Here is a land at once very old, peopled by equally ancient peoples, yet also a place where newcomers have poured in, virtually unaware of its history and presence. While they mostly cling to the coastal fringes, there is wonder but also fear to be found in the inner regions of a vast and lucky country that has yet to be fully explored. Join David Stuart Ryan on his own exploration of the southern land, Terra Australis, Australia.
About the Author: Poet David Stuart Ryan studied Ancient History and Philosophy at King's College London, and is a winner in the All Nations Poetry Contest. His Australian roots go back to the 1870s when his great grandfather and mother set out in their teens to sail for five months to the new continent. They married in Maryborough, Queensland and started farming 1200 acres at Rupanyup, in the Wimmera, Victoria, as well as producing 13 children. One of these was Herbert West, great uncle to the poet, who was killed on the Somme as part of the Australian Imperial Force that fought in that titanic battle. Here the character of the fledgling nation was fully formed. Indeed, Field Marshal Earl Haig, noting the extreme precision of the Australian artillery used in close combination with advancing determined troops, adopted this strategy as his winning formula for ending the conflict in 1918. The young nation had come to the rescue of the motherland and left an obligation and debt that continues to this day in the bonds that bind Australia and Britain. The remains of Herbert West were only discovered in 1936 at Pozieres, the background story is described in my poem "Mouquet Farm" http: //www.kozmikhoroscopes.com/poetry1.htm #Mouquet Farm Mouquet Farm, the Somme, August 19 1916 It was a perfect sunny summer afternoon When the letter fell onto the floor with a crash Announcing confirmation of your death in action Exactly eighty years before. The garden never seemed so at peace. In the pages of a book was your gallant story. The air beyond the hills hinting at some final freedom To be found on a continent lost from the beginning of time. (this is an extract only of the poem)