Joao (Large Print 16pt)

New collection from award-winning poet John Mateer

In a sequence of 64 sonnets, John Mateer describes the encounters of an alter-ego, Jo o, as he travels across the globe, attending festivals and readings, meeting with friends, lovers, and often-famous fellow authors. Questioning identity, melancholy in disposition, troubled by dreams and memories, Jo o is also an innocent, and given to moments of illumination and joy.

Mateer is both ironic and affectionate in his treatment of this picaresque figure, creating through his sonnet sequence a narrative which is new in Australian writing, the worldwide adventures of the poet as anti-hero, one who, despite his disappointments, still believes in the power of literature to create a sense of belonging, and to invoke the deep mandala of meeting and friendship'.