Earth's Breath
Cyclonic storms inform the still eye of Earth's Breath. It's an eye that radiates out from the personal to the communal, tracking its subject matter through the lenses of history and myth. Susan Hawthorne's poetry shifts with seismic intensity, from tranquility to roar, bureaucratic inertia to survival, and the slow recovery from destruction to regeneration.
2009 | ISBN 9781876756734 | Paperback | 200 x 130 mm | 84 pp
Awards
2010 Shortlisted, Judith Wright Prize
Reviews
Earth's Breath is a brave undertaking. Arranged in three parts to correspond with the before, during and after of the storm, Susan Hawthorne has captured the essence of the moment and the lingering toll a natural disaster takes on those who have lived through it. Hawthorne delivers legend, fable and emotion as well as reflections on humanity, nature and science. She has interspersed her topic with delightful descriptions of tropical birds and plants.
—Melanie Busato, Townsville Bulletin
Earth's Breath depicts a vast historical and emotional landscape through meticulous attention to detail. In this case, much of the detail reflects the poet's love of the natural world.
Carolyn Gage, Lambda Literary
A delightful read that is sure to entertain readers, "Earth's Breath" is a worthwhile addition to any poetry collection.
—Midwest Book Review
Hawthorne's work reveals poetry so vivid, so exquisite, so sensitive to the wind and its effects, it has made me determined to find out some more about some of our barely reported global catastrophes.
—Robyn Peck, poam
A delightful read that is sure to entertain readers, Earth's Breath is a worthwhile addition to any poetry collection.
—John Taylor, MBR Bookwatch
Earth’s Breath builds like an exquisite thriller. Susan Hawthorne has told a story so vast that only a book of poetry could contain it.
—Kristin Henry, poet
To record an eye-witness tale of cyclone is one thing; to appreciate it as a supremely dramatic instance of the cosmos’s own tolling is something else again.—Kris Hemmensley, Collected Works
The poems are sensitive to the wind, history, metaphor and ryhthm, are bright and active — inside outside together. They are a song to the cycles of the North Queensland tropics.
—Luke Beesley, poet