History of the Day is Stephen Edgar’s seventh poetry collection. His first was Queuing for the Mudd Club in 1985, and over the last twenty-four years he has been publishing poetry with a strikingly individual formal music. This latest volume further refines his superbly measured control of rhythm and cadence. There is nothing else like it in contemporary Australian poetry.

Edgar’s poetry has always explored a wide variety of subjects, exhibiting a questing, cerebral and sometimes troubled sensibility. History of the Day confirms his interest in human history (and human injustice and cruelty), art and culture, and the possibility of certain kinds of illumination.