The Flower, the Thing

From the Winner of the 2005 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for poetry

There is a goblet of lichen
for the sun to feed from
and a single wild iris
with a mind so old
that it came before invention
Its condition is perfect
It rests perfectly between
our hands
– from “Wild Iris”

MTC Cronin's poems - expansive and intimate, dynamic and reflective - blaze with electrifying vision. Writing with honesty and wit, grace, and the courage to strip away illusions, she explores surfaces, interiors, myths and mysteries through a kaleidoscope of flowers - dandelions, impatiens, roses, azaleas, flowers real and imagined. Suffused with awe and wonder, these poems unveil 'urgently, now, before us, the flower, the thing'.