Lost in the Foreground

'Stephen Edgar is quietly building the Augustan garden of Australian poetry. Seldom have all the imaginable poetic qualities been combined into such a thoughtful poise, and with so easy seeming a lyrical impulse. His poems not only demand to be read: they insist on being memorised, point for point. In Edgar's spare but steadily accumulating body of work, aesthetic appreciation and scientific rigour are conceived in terms of each other, as if the two main modes of knowing had never been separated. The result is an entire, and entirely unexpected, bewitchment.' - Clive James

'Even Edgar's admirers cannot have been expecting such a tour de force as Lost in the Foreground. Virtuosity of technique is combined with original thinking and clarity of presentation. Simply put, this is brilliant poetry, the equal of anything in English today. Australia should welcome the coming of age of an important talent.' - Peter Porter