The Flame Tree

Foster's first collection of poetry shimmers with the colours of the South Pacific. The green flash at sunset, the "diamond sleeve of an ocean inlet," and "the resilient fire/of flame trees" all illuminate a landscape of white beaches and tangled forests of walking trees and tangentangen. This is a dangerous landscape of legend and memory, where the past lies hidden like the unexploded bombs beneath the surface of the island. But Foster revisists it with courage and grace, exploring her losses with the sure knowledge that the dead "are not fully gone/but winged in the way/summer is winged/with shadow."