Peter Skrzynecki, Red Trees

Red Trees are autumn trees. Red: symbolic of blood, fire, passionate emotions. The title poem is a paean to the lives of a New England family in north-western New South Wales Skrzynecki lived with forty years ago in a small district called Jeogla near Armidale. Other poems are elegies,  examinations of migrant lives lived and still living, childhood friends, parents. Jervis Bay, Parkes, the Indian Ocean, suburban Sydney feature strongly as locations. We leave these places physically but they never leave us.  Like Aeneas, we carry our household gods with us, intentionally or not.

“His poems are filled with brilliant and unusual imagery of the Australian landscape. He shows splendid technical ability, a power of restraint and, above all, that overtone of mingled sadness and joy, completely unanalysable, which is pure poetry."  Kenneth Slessor

Peter Skrzynecki is an adjunct associate professor at the University of
Western Sydney where he taught for seventeen years. He is the author of
nineteen books of poetry and prose. Red
Trees is his most recent book of poetry.

Rare Object Number 53.
16 pages. Published 2010.
Cover image by Kay Orchison.