Vanessa Proctor’s poetry collection, On Wonder, was released by Walleah Press in December 2024. Vanessa is an award-winning poet from Sydney whose writing has been published in major Australian literary journals and translated into several other languages.

The subjects addressed in this collection include urban and country scenes from Australia, contemporary and historical events in other countries and ekphrastic works responding to paintings and photographs. Vanessa’s poems are descriptive, confessional, contemplative and gently humorous. The title poem, On Wonder, includes the lines:

Have you never been struck
by the beauty of something? I ask.
The stars in the night sky?
Mountains, the ocean, great art?

Vanessa’s poems are themselves beautiful – and they are compassionate. Her measured language highlights the beauty of each situation in a way that evokes compassion for nature and the people involved. These are poems of sympathy and pathos.

Furthermore, each poem knows exactly how to be. As Vanessa says in Bathroom Orchid:

With its glossy leaves
and velvet tongue
it knows exactly
how to be.

And that’s the case with these poems. Vanessa’s words know exactly how to fit together and how much to say. Nothing is forced, nothing is rushed. The timing of the words is comfortable. The sound of the words is pleasing. These poems are a delight to read.

Chinese Garden of Friendship

It is hard to find peace
in this part of the city
with its endless traffic
and clamour of construction.
Yet, stay long enough
and you’ll start to hear
the flow of the cascades.
Pause and you’ll notice ibis,
wings outstretched,
balancing on willow tops,
limestone rocks transforming
into dragons
and from the depths
of the Lake of Brightness,
unhurried carp
the colour of sunset
will slowly glide up to you
their mouths wide open.

Vanessa’s unhurried, sympathetic style also proves effective when writing about the most dire of situations. Take, for example, this extract from the poem Four Minutes which tells of a shipwreck:

At last the idea of freezing to death,
your sodden skirts dragging you down,
in frigid waters, your breath
condensing in the night air,
and the realisation that in water this cold
you have only minutes to live.

Vanessa’s poems are not aggressive. They don’t lecture the reader. Often, they focus on small things. And yet, their insightful observations bring understanding; leave the reader more conscious of big issues such as the interconnectedness of things and the finite nature of life.

The following poem relates to the contemporary performance of a hymn written by Hildegard of Bingen in the twelfth century. Without using an ‘in your face’ style, the poem reminds us of the best and the worst of human behaviour across the centuries; quietly encouraging us to reflect on whether we could all do better in the future.

O Quam Mirabilis Est
(Hereford Cathedral)

Through the darkness they come,
along the gravel path and past
the cloisters, umbrellas drip-
ping onto ancient flagstones.

Removing their raincoats,
they settle in the choir stalls
close to the bones
of murdered Ethelbert
and Saint Thomas Cantilupe.

They quietly inhale
the scent of wax, wood and dust
as generations before them
have done. The vaulted ceilings
remain shadowed and constant.

Here, everything intensifies,
the soft patter of rain,
the echo of footfalls,
the scratch of history’s quills,

the transformation of breath
into the energy of sound,
one expansive voice rising up,
visionary and numinous.

If more people spent more time reading beautiful and compassionate poetry, this might indeed be a better world.

Copies of On Wonder by Vanessa Proctor can be obtained directly from Walleah Press using this link. The book is also available from other online sellers.