All three poets use a personal voice to summon forth their immediate universe. Ryan and Brown are very much entrenched in their respective sub-cultures whilst Burke is essentially the polemicist, the observer of life in her native Newtown.

Ryan’s collection is permeated with the language of a very bold imagination: “As a brain leaks out from its tiny emotional field”; “Smile like a white ladder. That’s their famous trick”; “His straight and yellow skin steers his parents’ car”.

Manners of an Astronaut is essentially a world of emotional hallucination. As typified by the poems ‘In Blue Craft and Two Minds’ and ‘When You Feel’, Gig Ryan’s collection is to one degree or another a constant repetition of the author’s delirium. In fact this ceaseless outpouring of angst becomes a major weakness as the reader will inevitably tire of wading through knee-deep neuroses.