This Gift, This Poem

One of poetry's chief purposes is to draw people together. It has always been a means for communicating stories, beliefs, customs, and values of a people. In moments of crisis, we turn to poetry because it has that unique ability to express and formalise emotion, to bring something of ourselves into being. This anthology, This Gift, This Poem, does exactly that, keeping readers in its tender yet bracing hold. These poems have grown out of their own emotional necessity and rise to meet many universal and contemporary situations; they are revelatory and moving, and are indeed evidence that it is poetry that best speaks to our most intense experiences, that tells us most assuredly and resonantly who we are. - Judith Beveridge