From Australia Day to a rotting Macadamia stump; from a solitary suitcase on a carousel to a suitcase neatly packed with a conscience perhaps; from clean linen smelling of the sky to a teabag bleeding in a sink; from the continent spread out like a quilt to Ern Malley in quilted armour; from Lolita on cyber space to the hum of history: this sparkling Poets Union anthology covers a lot of ground – from Z to A in fact – and is testimony to the variety and vitality of the poets represented. Here are the carloads of whoever we are ranging over the world, both physical and imaginative, seeking and finding proof of who I am. Take the journey with them.

Stephen Edgar