JC ReillyManaging Editor of Atlanta Reviewauthor of What Magick May Not Alter
John TagueManaging Editor of Griffith Review
Nathanael O’ReillyPoet, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Arlington,Author of (Un)belonging, Preparations for Departure and Distance
Peter BoylePoet, Translator of Poetry, Author of Enfolded in the Wings of a Great Darkness,winner of the NSW Premier’s Prize 2020
Indran AmirthanayagamAuthor of The Migrant States, Editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly
We stumble on………….as if asleep………….all weekfloundering againstthe splay of dying,…………. the numb length…………. of living.…………………………………… (xi.)
I talk about my mother……… dying, tell you……… It’s natural —silver minnows, lying:there is nothing……… natural in burying…………. your father online.………………………………….. (xii.)
……………. … still to be human…………is to persist…………even at thisinfernal pass,we will stir………..the will to lean………..into the light.
Over the glowing dome of my bare abdomen,… A giant leap into uncharted territory:struck by the light of my first son, unadulterated then,but so often since eclipsed by the fearof what on Earth we will leave them.(III. A medical facility in Sydney, Australia – November 2004)
No gulls today —the stiff breeze phantoms their hauntingcalls, warm and peppered with salt, a far cryfrom where you and I once walked side by side.
…………………….… feet giving wayto stumble under thefractured edges.
Being the son he made you,you will walk out nowinto this newly shaped horizonand lean into the boundlessprospect ofthis grand, fine day.
…………………………………………………………………………….a flashof flame-bright fur, a swathe of white. Undulating, sundrenched,two entranced, entrancing fox mates frolicking …
The poet records her knowledge that their joy is finite:
…………………………………………………..…. … grief striking asacutely as horror at the impending loss of them.
… And in all that bright, beautiful,bewitching tumult, loss suddenlyswallows me whollyinto silence.
There is no immediate solution in sight,This is not a flashback scene. This is not fiction.
My vision clouds —… But, small and bright as spawn-clouds blooming —white, gold, coral, the young surfacing, shine through seeking truth:our budding hope.
– Devika Brendon
We surface abruptlySomewhere betweenthe third and fourth stages,two hills wailingin a keening wind
lay still, the sounds heardthe beginnings of comfort; feelthe sea on the wind, the fall-fallingof the wave riding the horizon
and the waves recede beyond the cliffs,beyond the trees; rows upon rows,filling their long trailing sacks; in the darkness,the silence at the centre of the wind, the sound of rain.
Under orders of our neighbour, the State Premier,who visited his school to shake handsbefore writing off our precious bushland—where once he bobbed bound to my heart,cooing as we ducked a troupeof black cockatoos swooping through,
toddled to the counting of water dragons,ran to track that elusive rock wallaby,raced to chase white tigermoths; stopped to probe bandicootsdroppings (with a stick); chewed over the albino galah,anaemic anomaly amidst its pink flock—all signed off.
'The Light We Cannot See by Anne Casey', a book review by Rochelle J Shapiro, was published on 27 March 2022.
'Anne Casey's "The Light We Cannot See": Reviewed by Jonathan Harrington' was published in Beltway Poetry Quarterly in November 2021.
'The light we cannot see' - a review by D. Ferrara, Editor of American Writers Review was published in At the Inkwell in October 2021.
'A review of "the light we cannot see" by Anne Casey' - a book review by Magdalena Ball was published in Compulsive Reader Magazine on 28 August 2021.
'Mandalas of Healing and Relief' - a review by Yuyutsu Sharma of the light we cannot see poetry collection by Anne Casey (Salmon Poetry 2021) was published in print and online in Pratik international literary magazine, Spring 2021 issue in August 2021.
Review of Poet Anne Casey's "the light we cannot see" by Toni Brisland (also known as Antonette M Diorio) was published in the Winter 2022 Issue of 'Women's Ink', the official magazine of the Society of Women Writers NSW in August 2022. The review was also published on Toni Brisland's blog in August 2022.