Congratulations Mark Tredinnick for winning the 2012 Cardiff International Poetry Prize. The ‘Margaret River Sestets’ is another example of Tredinnick’s poetic ability.

The word ‘sestets’ in the title suggests that the poem will be sophisticated; few people write sestets (six lined stanzas). Juxtaposing this is the informal, conversational voice that tells of place, flora, fauna and broken relationships. I will get back to the juxtapositions within this poem shortly. The poem begins:

                There’s a continent between us now, taut

  with distance…