Abstract:
Robert Adamson is one of Australia's leading contemporary poets and is a successful writer, editor and publisher. His interest and curiosity about birds has been a long-lived affair. As a child he was so obsessed with them that he used to draw their pictures and wanted to read everything about them. Attachment with birds has always been for Adamson a mode to connect with the outside world. He focuses on birds which are a common sight where he resides. In his typically Romantic vein, these birds become symbols of imagination and memory. Adamson charts the migration of birds and emphasizes that they ransgress human boundaries, ignoring signposts and political borders. For us they are rare and exotic birds: various kinds of parrots, cockatoos, bee-eaters, birds of paradise etc. but for Adamson they are common sights. The flight songs sung in their praise carry a deep hidden meaning. We thus find that Adamson is a sensually susceptible poet . This quality helps him to project his enlightened mind through poems featuring birds of his native
Hawkesbury region. His avian poems, based on the mighty world of eye and ear, carry symbolic and metaphorical connotations and touch our heart to the very core .
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