It is worth noting that Jennifer Maiden, along with the present reviewer, seems to be one of the few Australian poets born in the 1940s who is still writing. Each of us has to be careful now (as Peter Goldsworthy wrote long ago) that we are not ‘Carving this same face / out of soap, each morning / slightly less perfectly’.

The solution of Jennifer Maiden (b. 1949) to this eternal problem has been to publish a new book every year or so focusing on the changing – and, so far, endless – hypocrisies and double standards exhibited by local and international politicians, particularly those admired by the left, the side of politics which Maiden also seems to support, albeit it in a sometimes uncomfortable manner.