The short story of you and I

'From long narrative lines to fine-boned, lyrical loops and ties that bind these poems into place, Richard James Allen has taken risks with language that mark this as his most adventurous and significant book to date.' - Anthony Lawrence

'Allen's subject is Being itself, and the way our biological and mental dimensions interact, with human intelligence and love being the unifying forces for this interaction.' - Adam Aitken

'This is a book full of hauntings, ruins, and after-effects. The perspective is philosophical and curious, habitually metapoetic, by turns panoramic and hyper-focused, and imbued with a quiet mysticism.' - Melinda Smith

'In philosophical poems grounded in the everyday, wide-ranging excursions from the physical into the metaphysical, Allen affirms life in the midst of hardship and in the mess of the quotidian uncovers epiphanies.' - Luke Fischer

'The poems dazzle and delight. Some are haunting and delicate, others explosively powerful. There is an intimate feel as if they are all addressed to the reader directly.' - Lynne Lancaster, Sydney Arts Guide