Margaret Bradstock

Alchemy of the Sun is a book about journeys. Sent to 'open up the country', ignorant of Aboriginal strategies for coping with the terrain and climate, many of the desert explorers failed, some dying in the attempt. Today's battle is with man-made climate change and its aftereffects, an ongoing fecklessness that has disturbed the delicate balance of elements and environment....

Like its precursor Barnacle Rock, Brief Garden is a collection of poems largely concerned with environmental degeneration and loss. The title poem deals with the ephemeral nature of a civilisation and its artefacts, but the focus of the collection goes deeper, playing on the word 'brief', the vanishing of an Edenic garden. Today, our world is further threatened by anthropogenic...