SWIMMING IN WORDS

<p><strong style=color: rgba(35 63 140 1)>WINNER EYELANDS BOOK AWARDS PRIZE 2025</strong></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(0 102 204 1)>FINALIST WISHING SHELF BOOK AWARDS 2025</strong></p><p><strong style=color: rgba(35 63 140 1)>Luke Icarus Simon's groundbreaking work was first published in the 1980s and he has since </strong><strong style=color: rgba(35 63 140 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>become one of the quiet achievers of Australian Literature. This collection explores how we relate to family and partners and the shaping of our identity through the shifting currents of love friendship and illness. Simon's aim is to make sense of why we're all here masterfully navigating and negotiating the realities of our existential aloneness. </strong></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(35 63 140 1)>Luke Icarus Simon's experience as an actor and playwright informs each poem propelling the reader into a sensual visceral and passionate world. With settings as diverse as the Great Ocean Road Santiago Athens and the Greek Islands Simon draws readers into the intimacies of his life. </strong></p><p><strong>SWIMMING IN WORDS brings together seventy of Simon's poems many previously published in journals others revised for this collections as well as completely new works such as the 4000-word eponymous prose poem.</strong></p>