PETE HAY: "... I love that poem for the very exuberance of its language. In my view, too much Australian poetry lacks exuberance. Perhaps I've been reading Neruda and Lorca and the Spanish language poets for too long but what I love about them is that they run huge risks in the very way they deploy words and images. And we mostly don't. I once asked one of Austalia's most venerated poets via an anonymous question from the floor whether he agreed with the characterisation I've just given you. And I didn't expect him to agree with it but to my surprise he did. But then he went on to defend it, saying that we live in a spare, dessicated, cut-down land. And that it's appropriate that we write a spare, dessicated, cut-down poetry.... "

Pete Hay: Tasmanian Poetry Festival, October 2012