Extract from Gina Mercer’s launch of Undertow — Hobart, 11th October 2012
Now to talk about, and toast, this marvellous book, Undertow. Rereading it for the 4th or 5th time in preparation for tonight, I understood something vital. Susan Austin is a dancer. Her biographical note declares her to be an occupational therapist and an eco-socialist activist… but truly she is a dancer. This collection of poetry is actually a dance performance. In this book Susan performs dance after dazzling dance. Hers is a delicious and potent performance: deft, precise, sensuous and elegant.
The topics Susan writes about are engaging, serious, insightful, funny. She ranges from: the beginning of a new relationship; to the grief she describes on the death of a mother; to the inescapable guilt one feels as a first world traveller in a developing country.