Extending the territory covered by the later poems in that selection, The Kingfisher’s Soul takes Adamson’s personal Romanticism and daring lyricism to a higher imaginative level. He confronts a range of contradictions: how the fish he kills to make a living also sustain his vision as poet; and how he uses birds from the sky for his paintings. He wonders about the existence of God as well as the different meanings of souls of humans, birds, fish and animals. Some of the poems look at war, and many come back again to love.

‘Readers of Robert Adamson’s books will have understood that this distinguished man of letters and major poet is one of the most significant gifts Australia can offer the rest of the world. Specifically, the gift comes from the Hawkesbury River, north of Sydney. This river that Adamson lives on, and from which everything is born, becomes in his work an archetypal water which everyone can relate to wherever they reside. From it he raises a universe. Robert Adamson grows into the reader like a whole forest, slowly and deeply like a whole Nature. He deserves reading like you deserve breath’ – Nathaniel Tarn.

‘Robert Adamson is that rare instance of a poet who can touch all the world and yet stay particular, local to the body he’s been given in a literal time and place. He is as deft and resourceful a craftsman as exists, and his poems move with a clarity and ease I find unique. He has savored his life, felt it at each moment, and what he has written is its vivid and enduring testament’ – Robert Creeley.