Author(s): Graeme Hetherington

Poetry | Tasmaniana | * Fullers Publishing

These poems convey Graeme Hetherington’s response to his awareness of Tasmania’s convict past as it continued to make itself deeply felt during the 40s and 50s of the last century, nowhere more so than on the island’s West Coast. Pervasively colouring his consciousness, it has perhaps been the single most important factor shaping the course of the poet’s life. As Ralph Spaulding says in his introduction, ‘the real power of the poetry in this collection stems from the poet’s use of motifs associated with Tasmania’s nineteenth century penal system.