THE improbable true story of Thomas Watling of Dumfries, a forger-convict sent to Australia in 1788, only to become the colony's first official artist, is told by Tom Pow in prose and poetry, illustrated by Watling's own artwork, in A Wild Adventure (Polygon, £12.99 hardback).

Here is a sample poem.

LORIKEETS

As if when God's finished creating

light

He has some left over he's loath to waste.

So he weaves the scraps he has - a few bright

Threads around his feet, on the edge of sight

But dazzling as flowerbeds in the

white

Fields of snow - and from these the lorikeets

Are born. They are concentrations of light -

Light spectra on the wing. Hear them greet

Their own pleasure - chests rose hips in sunlight;

Imagine an autumn hedgerow in

flight!

Each day before him the dead are laid out.

He's watched the air spill from their wings - the shout

Of someone's success. As they fall, the bright-

Ness leaves their eyes. He learns when not in flight

They preen each other, for each takes delight

In the other. Lorikeets mate for

life.