Prickly Moses

"For the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, a new collection by Australian poet Simon West that explores childhood experience and Australian ecology and topography. In this collection, named after the Australian term for the mimosa tree, Simon West explores the powers of acknowledgement and naming, of turning perception to word. The book begins with several poems focused upon the experience of learning to read and write in childhood before expanding outward to explore the topography, landscape, botany, and zoology of Melbourne and the larger domain of Victoria. He also draws upon his extensive knowledge of modernist Italian poetry, placing the world of Australia in dialogue with the landscapes and experiences of antiquity. Across the collection, these poems are united by their close attention to sound both on the page and in the world. They offer a meditation on the dual work of the poet: to observe and scrutinize, to plumb for the right sound or syllable, to translate, as West does, the flight of the colorful Australian parrots called rosellas onto the page"--