A Suite of Poems by Rozanna Lilley from 'Beechworth, 1879'

Beechworth, 1879 uses primary historical sources, especially newspapers, to recreate the heady goldrush world of colonial Victoria. This was a world characterised by bourgeois pleasures as well as by a dark history of displacement and segregation, with people from disparate backgrounds living in close proximity. The 52 poems follow the trajectory of different residents, real and fictive, over the course of a year. One of the characters, Blanche, is loosely based on my Cornish great-great-grandmother.