After a decorated career heading architectural firms in Melbourne, Tim Hurburgh is sharing for the first time another of his heart’s passions: poetry, firmly rooted in the Tasmanian soil on which he grew up. The sure hand of seasoned guide Hurburgh’s aptly named Disruptions persuasively jolts the reader out of shibboleth rainforests to crisp visions in amusing, aching, and compelling realities. It provides a too-long-needed fresh insight into the Tasmanian locale shadowed by its Van Diemen’s Land convict-scarred past.
Disruptions celebrates and commiserates with the inimitable stories of the once notorious but ever picturesque Apple Isle, with a rousing and often humorous human touch. Each poem is accompanied by brief narratives in plain prose, backgrounding the ideas explored, and intertwined with Tim’s sketches, which add vibrant colour to the collection.
In Disruptions, Hurburgh’s especial combination of personal and perennial poetry disrupts into a disarmingly conversational sound on page, stripped of sentimentality, and provides an abundance of insights into one of the world’s least understood labyrinths.
