The Earth Will Outshine Us

'From quandongs to Covid-19, from a grandchild discovering Neptune's necklace to small butterflies darting "as if in time to Ross Edwards' Ecstatic Dances..." this second book from Kathryn Fry offers a kaleidoscopic dazzle of imagery from the natural world. In a vividly recognisable Australian landscape, her poems are rich in scientific curiosity and knowledge, but also grounded and emotionally connected to everyday life. There is a delightful buoyancy in the writing: an enthusiasm for the way we live in our contemporary world which offers many "hallelujahs" and "blessings" as well as poignant insights. The Earth Will Outshine Us is an impressively original and timely collection.' - Jean Kent

'Reading Kathryn Fry's fine poems of nature and art, I was suddenly thinking of Simon Schama's monumental Landscape and Memory. But where Schama explains, analyses and informs, Kathryn Fry - delicately, precisely - evokes, unveils, delights and reminds. To misquote from her poem "The Earth Will Outshine Us", these poems are "a lesson // in seeing". And feeling: for the art and science of being sentient to the fragile beauties of this world and its people.' - Brook Emery