Books by Adrian Mitchell

Come On Everybody brings together poems from a dozen collections published by Adrian Mitchell over five decades, from Poems (1964) to his final collection, Tell Me Lies (2008).

'The Collesses. Theirs is the story of Australia itself. Convicts, bushrangers, cattle thieves, pioneers, punters, graziers, ANZACs; floods and droughts, boom and bust, they lived right through it all. Their story is every bit as comprehensive as Dorothea Mackellar's "I love a sunburnt country". They were right in the thick of our founding cultural history; they helped to make it, helped make this land. From Bird's Eye Corner to the far corner country. Henry Colless's line - corner to corner, through the middle of everything. And it is not a line without trace. George, William, Henry, they each handed on their sterling character - a more telling legacy than money can buy.' Henry Colless, one of the old pioneers. In his mid-teens he set out as a carrier across the Blue Mountains and then further along the track to the northwest. He was still a teenager when he helped his father and his brother establish legendary Come-by-Chance. He was one of the early settlers in Bourke, and later became one of its leading lights; and he drove a great mob of cattle across the corner country to establish the first station at Innamincka. This is his story.