Paul Scully is an actuary by training, works in finance and has been writing poetry most of his life. He has a Masters of Creative Writing from Sydney University, where he is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Creative Arts. Much of the poetry in this volume comes from this endeavour. His first collection, An Existential Grammar, was published by Walleah Press in 2014 and was shortlisted for the Anne Elder Award. His second collection, Suture Lines, was published by Guillotine Press in 2016. His work has been commended and shortlisted in major Australian poetry prizes and has been published in print and online journals in Australia, Ireland, the UK and USA.

If there are no easy answers here, there is nevertheless a sense, as Browning says, that ‘All our life is some form of religion.’ In verse that is measured and always thoughtful, Scully weighs the detail and delight of things against their difficult, confronting implications. – Martin Langford, author of Ground

A numinous gaze sequesters these apocrypha from history’s barbs and the traumatic coalitions of religion and empire. Yet there is clarity and grace in Scully’s poems and homages. A quiet harvester, he writes poignantly of the past, making words whisper and shine. – Michelle Cahill, Mascara Literary Review