Not Finding Wittgenstein

The poems in "Not Finding Wittgenstein" feature Peter Henry Lepus, a rabbit who searches the world for philosophers, conversing with Ludwig Wittgenstein in Antarctica, Bertrand Russell in Japan, and with A.J. Ayer and J.L. Austin in Iraq before and after the invasion. J.S. Harry is one of Australia's leading poets, renowned for her cool wit and sharp intellect, and for her seemingly whimsical irony, which is unerringly accurate in piercing pretension. Peter's innocent but quizzical rabbit perspective is perfect for her questioning of the nature of perception and the limits of philosophical enquiry, of the ways in which language constructs our world, and of how poetry may reconstruct it again, in strange and surreal ways. But there's also a humble, human concern expressed through Peter's innocence and vulnerability, about the beauty of simple things and the delicacy of the natural order - and the ease with which both may be poisoned by pride, or politics, or war.