When Australian poetry soars to new heights, it's usually because poets open up to the whole place ... they take risks and write from the core of our culture.' ---ROBERT ADAMSON. By turns playful and topical, intimate and engaged, this vibrant collection gathers voices from all across the country from cities and coastal towns to the very heart o...

With their tidal imagination, the poems in this debut collection sweep between old worlds and new, seeking the lost and recovering the found among shipwrecks, underwater zoos and discovered lands. Emma Jones brings her inventive worlds dramatically to life in a series of vividly distilled meetings - of settlers and indigenous peoples, of seawaters and shore, of humanity and the wilds of nature. Here, tigers stalk the captive and the free, while Death encounters his own double and Daphne tells of her new leaves, 'They sing, and make the world.' The same might be said of the poems themselves in this restless and memorable search for belonging.

Stepping Over Seasons artfully depicts the finer details of life, encapsulating change within people and places as the seasons unfurl. In 'Overlook', Capes argues that it's much easier for great poets to romanticise the world's most classic cities by poetically and playfully ridiculing his own not-so-romantic Australian hometown. Asserting that, in this digital age, everything can be recorded in some way, the poem 'Late Night' claims there is no longer a need for people to appreciate things "in the moment." The poem 'Leaking' describes the love seeping out of two people with the momentum of a leaking tap.

Grass Notes is a highly crafted poetry collection. Subtle, rich and diverse in subject matter, Sarah Day's poems are linked by cadence and musicality. Time and transience form the sub-stratum of much of the book: the past from the perspective of the present, the present from the perspective of the past (View From a Roman Litter). The poems take into their scope geological time and the enigmatic nature of the present, inviting the reader to ask questions and share in her vividly rendered observations. Grass Notes is a highly crafted poetry collection. Subtle, rich and diverse in subject matter, Sarah Day's poems are linked by cadence and musicality. Time and transience form the sub-stratum of much of the book: the past from the perspective of the present, the present from the perspective of the past (View From a Roman Litter). The poems take into their scope geological time and the enigmatic nature of the present, inviting the reader to ask questions and share in her vividly rendered observations. "[Her poems enable us] to capture the lost intensity of our own perceptions" (Robert Dessaix). "This collection moves from wide angle views of humanity orbiting a mundane star on the outer margins of the Milky Way (Observatory), to close-ups as intimate as the palm of a wombat soft as a child's with lines scored/ the line of fate, the line of the heart". "Sarah Day is clearly a poet who matters, one with the gift of being able to transform the world we know (Veronica Brady)".

The Best Australian Poems 2010 vibrates with correspondences. The images in some poems are reflected in others … until the individual poems begin to read like stanzas in some epic story of this country.' - Robert Adamson Selected by one of Australia's most acclaimed poets, this inspired collection captures the richness and scope of present - day Australian verse. It features innovative and exciting poems - many published here for the first time - from our best - known poets as well as daring and insightful works from rising stars. Together they create a lively sense of conversation, of voices criss - crossing the continent, exploring the many themes that animated and inspired the nation's poets in 2010. Contributors include: Chris Andrews, Judith Beveridge, Ken Bolton, Peter Boyle, David Brooks, Pam Brown, Joanne Burns, Elizabeth Campbell, Justin Clemens, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Luke Davies, Bruce Dawe, Laurie Duggan, Stephen Edgar, Anne Elvey, Lionel Fogarty, Lisa Gorton, Robert Gray, Martin Harrison, Kevin Hart, Barry Hill, Sarah Holland - Batt, L.K. Holt, Lisa Jacobson, John Kinsella, Anna Krien, Anthony Lawrence, Geoffrey Lehmann, Kate Lilley, Astrid Lorange, Roberta Lowing, Rhyll McMaster, Jennifer Maiden, Kate Middleton, Peter Minter, Derek Motion, Les Murray, Geoff Page, Peter Rose, Gig Ryan, Jaya Savige, Craig Sherborne, Vivian Smith, Peter Steele, John Tranter, Chris Wallace - Crabbe, Petra White and many more.