'Jane, Lady Franklin' by Adrienne Eberhard 'Will we assume their speed the shark's coming the squid's mobilitiy the flathead's knowledge? This difficulty fostling in our bodies - I could walk on my hands for sure.' When Adrienne Eberhard assumes the persona of Jane, Lady Franklin, wife of the colonial Governor Sir John Franklin, she releases herself as a poet of intimate engagements. In a suite of poems, linked together like a chain of ponds, she follows Jane Franklin's Tasmanian years. Water, rocks, fossils, step daughters, desire or guilt and betrayal, and love of the physical world seethe in her lines. 'Eberhard looks long and deeply at well-loved landscapes and renders them with remarkable intensity and ingenuity of imagery...she has an unapologetic love for what language can do...a willingness to risk total immersion in it, even to the point of excess...she has a high degree of empathy with people and other living creatures. Eberhard is able to think her way deeply into their situations and create complex and lyrical accounts of her investigations...we are seeing the emergence of a truly substantial poetic talent.' Geoff Page, 'Island' magazine
