Mothlight

Mothlight is a collection of 51 contemporary Australian poems by author and former barrister Brian Walters. 


In Mothlight, Brian Walters reveres both the natural world and the power of the clear poetic line. One poem at a time, he edges us closer to seeing, to captivation, to wild play, to progress. At a time of renewed environmental awareness, this collection invites the reader to do the only thing that is left for us to do – a gentle moving through the world.

– Amanda Anastasi, poet


Gathered under seven headings: Candleflame, Featherfeel, Moonray, Orbiting, Metamorphosis, Wingflutter, and Imago – each group of poems is complemented by a family of full-page images. 


I love these poems, the surprise of them, the wideness and range of vision, the delicate precision of the lens shifting from the personal, the heart, to the glory of the world. The exultation and celebration of the natural world is a constant and marvellous echo of Hardy. There is too, a similar humane heart.

– Helen Elliott, literary critic and writer


The rich visual setting within Mothlight complements poems that explore our place in a beautiful but damaged world.


A Brian Walters poem is a walk in fair weather and good company in the high country in winter; it is an act of kindness and courage you wish had been your own. His voice is a forest of Old Testament timbers—the Cedars of Lebanon transposed well south and reborn as a sclerophyll woodland. His lines are an elegant eucalypt elegy, a vote of thanks, a currawong choir.

– Mark Tredinnick, poet


Mothlight is a third, companion, volume to the author’s two earlier books of poems Angels, like laundry and Brink, which are also available through Apple Books.