Modewarre: Home Ground

In poems that are as concentrated as pearls, Patricia Sykes explores various histories—her own, those of her forebears, and the wider histories of identity and place. Citing the intersection of three distinct philosophies with particular birds—the indigenous modewarre, the colonial biziura lobata, and the common Wathaurong musk duck—these poems set out on the winding paths of memory and aspiration, searching for answers to the questions What is home? and What is identity? Their …