That Sight

Read Lachlan Brown's introduction to That Sight.

ISBN: 9780648056881

As I discovered in putting this collection together, the central impulse in my poetry is duality – what it means to be both body and spirit, alone and together, certain and unsure, permanent and still so temporary. I have spent much time trying to reconcile these opposing states within myself, ultimately, and very personally, so that I can live with some degree of honour. I hope That Sight exposes the humanness of this endeavour, grappling with the limits of either / or to arrive, momentarily, at the broader expanses of also / and.

Many of these poems are also in dialogue with other texts – an attempt to transcribe experiences, understand how ideas transfer, be newly applied and gain meaning – which, I suppose, is my form of play. ‘Invisible Cities’, for example, is an ambitious collision of Calvino, ‘Attār’s The Conference of the Birds and Bahá’u’llah’s The Seven Valleys – thrillingly conceived on the beach at Lorne, Victoria while pondering my own travels. Where it ends is where it starts – but hopefully something has shifted, enlarged, fallen away by the turning of the page.

–Marjon Mossammaparast