The term Vandemonian refers to Van Dieman's Land, and Cliff Forshaw's sixth collection focuses on its inhabitants, both human and animal, newcomer and Aborigine, to piece together a fragmentary history of Tasmania.
The first section moves from the island's mythic beginnings as Trowenna, through its discovery by Europeans andthe subsequent destruction of native peoples and wildlife as it becomes a penal colony's own penal colony.
The poems roam wider and eventually fetch up on the mainland. "A Ned Kelly Hymnal" reflects on the legend of the famous outlaw, its use by artists and its ambiguous ubiquity as a symbol of Australian identity.
The book concludes with "The Shoal Bay Death Spirit Dreaming": an elegy for one whitefella victim of the Australian sun. The poem considers death and displacement through the disorientating effects of modern travel which foster oblique reflections on a famous aborigine artwork, the huge collaborative painting by Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri and his brother Tim Leura Tjapaltjarri,The Napper by Death Spirit Dreaming.
