Tessa Sinclair Scott

Dream Houses Tessa Sinclair Scott

An assured, accomplished and absorbing first collection, by turns earthy and sensual, savvy and strikingly perceptive, strikingly apt, loaded with lines and images that are almost poems in themselves.

- David Brooks, co-editor, SOUTHERLY (1999-2018)

Beautifully constructed poems plunge us into wild coastal New Zealand landscapes with filtered green light, and large night skies. The formal architecture often contains controlled turbulence. New Zealand and Europe lay claim to Tessa Sinclair Scott, a descendant of seafarers. German words slide unobtrusively in and out of English text: 'Echt', which loosely translates as real, the title of a poem set in Germany, contains these lines: 'For a time, I tried out flat & cool & smooth, / but it wasn't really echt - just the only way to mask / the panic of really being here.'

Scott's poems are profoundly real and exquisitely built. Her love poems are exceptional.

- JANET KENNY, author of WHISTLING IN THE DARK

When a house is also a voyage, when a dream is also a history - Scott's poems remind us of the plurality of things, in a language that has lost none of its enchantment, none of its summoning power. This is a poetry that names, feels, and builds.

-- JEREMY ALLAN HAWKINS, author of A CLEAN EDGE

Scott's language speaks of multitudes and their ghostly alphabets; the animal kingdom, the human race and nature intermingle. Keep searching for the little mysteries and secrets scattered throughout 'Dream Houses', follow the traces of silence.

-- ANDRA ROTARU, editor, CREVICE magazine