Peter Boyle

Towns in the Great Desert is a significant addition to the corpus of a major Australian poet. These poems make a significant claim for Boyle's standing as one of Australia's most important contemporary poets."Towns in the Great Desert contains a new book of poems together with selections from Boyle's six previous books. The title sequence is a fabulist's journey through imaginary cities possessing suspiciously modern features, but the new work also comprises a collection of miscellaneous lyrics, a very late-night set of Nightpoems and an extended meditation on Lorca. Unusually in Australia, Boyle inhabits the alternative poetic universe of the French and Spanish traditions: within it, he has framed such powerful early poems as 'Kinderszernen', and disturbing recent work such as 'To a day in October'. Restlessly and inventively, his high styles stalk through a beautiful but difficult world, never too far away from the guardian angel of catastrophe." -- Martin Langford"With his brilliant Borgesian Apocrypha (2009) Peter Boyle also set himself a very hard act to follow. At his best, Boyle could convince us that a poet can open the doors of him- or herself, and with a Keatsean negative capability, become a vehicle for some deep, Orphic force. The doors are opened very wide here. The force is like a river in flood. That these new poems come attended by a generous selection from Boyle's first six collections makes it a rich gift to his readers." -- David BrooksPeter Boyle was born in Melbourne in 1951 and has lived in Sydney from the age of 12. As well as writing poetry he has translated extensively from French and Spanish poetry. His work has received numerous awards and been translated into several languages.

Subtitled 'The Belated Love Poems of Thean Morris Caelli' - a neglected 20th century poet much influenced by Celan and Vallejo - this collection represents the merging of two fine Australian poets into the consciousness of an other. Or An Other. Both authors worked on each individual text, and thus it is a true joint effort, not simply a kind of book-length renga. A remarkable departure for two of the finest poets from Australia's current middle generation.

Squid, cuttlefish and octopuses, which form the marine mollusc group the cephalopods, are of great and increasing interest to marine biologists, physiologists, ecologists, environmental biologists and fisheries scientists. Cephalopods: ecology and fisheries is a thorough review of this most important animal group. The first introductory section of the book provides coverage of cephalopod form and function, origin and evolution, Nautilus, and biodiversity and zoogeography. The following section covers life cycles, growth, physiological ecology, reproductive strategies and early life histories. There follows a section on ecology, which provides details of slope and shelf species, oceanic and deep sea species, population ecology, trophic ecology and cephalopods as prey. The final section of the book deals with fisheries and ecological interactions, with chapters on fishing methods and scientific sampling, fisheries resources, fisheries oceanography and assessment and management methods. This scientifically comprehensive and beautifully illustrated book is essential reading for marine biologists, zoologists, ecologists and fisheries managers. All libraries in universities and research establishments where biological sciences and fisheries are studied and taught should have multiple copies of this landmark publication on their shelves.

'Questioning what it means to be human lies at the heart of this new collection byPeter Boyle. These are poems which intuit that a certain kind of looking is required in order to see. It is a gaze that has retained its human innocence, despite belonging to one who has grown aware through knowledge, experience and understanding.This innocence is the space one must retain in oneself in order to be filled andrefilled with life. These poems make this space available to anyone who is willing, with Boyle, to accept that the truth of being alive only "enters us endlessly when there seems to be nothing left to enter us".'MTC CRONIN'Boyle cuts with a sharp scalpel into the hidden bag of desires, dreams and fears we drag behind us, exposing a repressed world waiting to be retrieved. His poetry comes directly from the unconscious and is still capable of speaking its dark language. His questions are straightforward, but the answers are not: What temperature is the box? / Cold, but there are small glints of burning as well. This is the voice of a mature poet who knows how to calmly illuminate the human shadow.'MIGUEL GOMES