Going to Orange

'Diana Pearce's poetry collection provides a demonstration of the wisdom in delaying publication until the poems have matured. She grew up in the country, which remains a focus of much of her poetry. It is, however, far removed from bush verse. The language is accessible, but her control of images and metaphors lifts the work to a higher plane. Diana shows, not tells. We see familiar subject matter with fresh vision. One example appears in "Desiccation", set at a school reunion during drought: "We gathered/ a greyness of septuagenarians, / sharing faintly verdant / recollections of school life / decades past'. The collection invites us into a world that would be familiar to many readers, but one that we see in a new way." - Norm Neill
'This is an exciting late debut, a memorable collection of poems that has waited a lifetime of experience to be committed to written form. The casual everyday quality of the diction adds to its depth and authentic lived-in texture, and transforms the poet's landscape from ordinary to extraordinary. It deals with love, loss, and sometimes aloneness, in an immediate and refreshing way. The voice is engaging, warm and open, communicative and clear. Here is a poet who encourages the reader to "move through corridors of memories" and offers hope, especially for those in the winter of their years, to "find the wonder / in the still-to-come" as put forward in "The Sixth Age".' - Cassandra J. O'Loughlin