Unearthed is a collection of elegies for dead friends and past loves as well as a tribute to Ryan’s embattled but joyous life on a bush block. In a long sequence addressed to her Swiss-German first husband, Ryan delves into unresolved grief and the ambivalent feelings that remain after severing intense relationships. Unearthed is Tracy Ryan’s seventh full-length collection. According to Geoff Page, here is ‘the poet at her mature and forensic best’.