Paper Bark Press
Invisible Riders
Peter Steele
1999, 104 pages, softcover, 215x150mm
ISBN 90 5704 106 5
Cover photograph: 'Elephant and Opera House, Taronga Zoo, Sydney' by David Potts
Invisible Riders is selection of Peter Steele's recent poetry. Some of the poems reflect the author's work as a teacher in America, and some his activities in Australia. They are a mixture of the formal and the easy-going, and range across a wide array of emotions and attitudes. Some are narrative in spirit, some lyrical, and most are meditative or argumentative. A good number allude to historical, cultural and geographic items. Most of them include mental and emotional moves which were a surprise to the author, and will probably prove to be so to the reader.
Peter Steele has published two books of poetry previously, four books of literary criticism (on Jonathan Swift, modern poetry, autobiography as a mode of writing and on Peter Porter) and many dozens of articles on literary and cultural matters. He holds a personal chair at the University of Melbourne, where he has taught for many years. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Alberta, at Loyola University Chicago, at Georgetown University, and at the University of Oxford. He was Provincial Superior of the Jesuits in Australia from 1985 to 1990.
'Poem after poem ... is a celebration of the fruits of reflection, whether the subject be a street, a Renaissance Jesuit polymath, a Breugel, birds or broth of hope itself. Steele has never defined poetry as the medium in which to dream. But a glance at the last poems of Invisible Riders will indicate that one of the jockeys on our backs is the one allowing us to do just that.'
~ Colette Rayment, Meanjin
'Hands, stairs, trees, corridors, hats, fountains, fires, and the palm tree (in the lovely poem 'Palms') all act as points from which the richness of the poet's experience or knowledge may be summoned to bear witness ... to the richness of creation.'
~ Ivor Indyk, Australian Book Review
Invisible Riders was shortlisted for The Victorian Premier's C.J. Dennis Prize for Poetry 2000.