{"product_id":"birds-and-fish-life-on-the-hawkesbury","title":"Birds and Fish: Life on the Hawkesbury","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Book:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn the old days I used to think art \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eThat was purely imagined could fly higher \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eThan anything real. Now I feel a small fluttering \u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eBird in my own pulse, a connection to the sky. \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e—from ‘The Kingfisher’s Soul’\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the last year of his life, with the help of friend and poet Devin Johnston, Robert Adamson put together a selection of his writings on the natural world. \u003ci\u003eBirds and Fish\u003c\/i\u003e defines the presences in his life on the Hawkesbury River and includes excerpts from his autobiography, \u003ci\u003eInside Out\u003c\/i\u003e, as well as essays written over the years for \u003ci\u003eFishing World\u003c\/i\u003e; some prose poems; and journal excerpts related to his bowerbird Spinoza. Adamson’s prose is vivid, precise, and draws on his life on the river and his poetic sensibility. The book also includes drawings by Robert Adamson.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAbout the Author:\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert Adamson\u003c\/b\u003e was an Australian poet. He was born in 1943 and lived near the Hawkesbury River for most of his life. As a juvenile delinquent growing up on the shores of Sydney Harbour, he often sought refuge on the Hawkesbury at the home of his paternal grandfather, who fished its waters for over four decades. As Adamson recounts in his autobiography \u003ci\u003eInside Out\u003c\/i\u003e, his grandfather taught the future poet how to ‘read’ the river, advising him to ‘never stay away too long’ and imparting the instinctive knowledge that ‘all rivers flow into this one.’ Adamson never forgot this advice, even during the dark years of reform school and personal turmoil that followed, when he first came to poetry. With a career spanning five decades and countless literary awards, Adamson is recognised as one of Australia’s greatest poets. His books are published in the UK and the USA, and his poems have been translated into several languages. He published twenty-one volumes of poetry and organised and produced poetry readings at literary festivals throughout Australia and internationally. He was President of the Poetry Society of Australia, from 1974 to 1980. Adamson’s autobiography, \u003ci\u003eInside Out\u003c\/i\u003e, was published in 2004. Adamson was a key player in the growth of the ‘New Australian Poetry’ and an editor of the Poetry Society of Australia’s magazine, \u003ci\u003eNew Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e, from 1968 to 1982. He worked as a poetry editor and consultant and established several small publishing companies, including \u003ci\u003ePrism Books\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eBig Smoke\u003c\/i\u003e. With his wife, the photographer Juno Gemes, he published \u003ci\u003ePaper Bark Press\u003c\/i\u003e from 1986 until 2002. This small press was one of Australia’s most important publishers of poetry, with a backlist of over thirty books. Robert Adamson died in December 2022. He worked with his friend and fellow poet Devin Johnston to prepare this book. Devin Johnston is the author of several collections of poetry, including \u003ci\u003eDragons\u003c\/i\u003e (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). An editor of \u003ci\u003eFlood Editions\u003c\/i\u003e, Johnston teaches at Saint Louis University in Missouri, where he lives. ISBN: 978-0-6455369-0-4 Cover artwork: Robert Adamson, \u003ci\u003ePaper Sailfish in a Sea of Ink\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Upswell Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42238583865399,"sku":null,"price":29.99,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0626\/7771\/2951\/files\/Upswell-2024__Birds-and-Fish_front-cover.jpg?v=1779074746","url":"https:\/\/upswell-publishing.myshopify.com\/products\/birds-and-fish-life-on-the-hawkesbury","provider":"Upswell Publishing","version":"1.0","type":"link"}