Afterimages

The Age Poetry Book of the Year - 2002

Australian poet Kevin Hart said of Robert Gray: 'No-one has seen this country as sharply, or with as much tenderness, as he has done'.

Widely acclaimed by both critics and the general reading public as one of Australia's finest poets, Robert Gray's latest and seventh volume of poetry, afterimages was released in March 2002.

afterimages, which features some of Gray's striking drawings, is impressive in its range of poems: from the highly personal portrait of his ninety year-old mother in 'The Dying Light':

She who hasn't survived living,
how can we dream that she will survive her death?

to the ordinary or commonplace in 'A Bowl of Pears':

Swarthy as oilcloth and as squat
as Sancho Panza
wearing a beret's little stalk
the pear

afterimages is distinctively Gray at his best: impressive in imagery, rhythmically original, technically versatile - and capable of touching the deepest levels of feeling.