Michael Sariban

John Mateer’s fifth poetry collection confirms him as a poet of considerable assurance and originality. The Ancient Capital of Images is, in a sense, a metaphor for the poetic imagination – the entity formerly known as the Muse. The terrain ranges from South Africa to Australia to Japan. It is in the latter section that his achievement is most impressive. There is little here of the travelogue, the sense being rather of an inward journey.

Michael Sariban has provided us with a new and memorable collection of poetry. In 1984, the Queensland Community Press produced At the Institute for Total Recall, which met with an enthusiastic response.