Is it possible to read Keats these days without a smirk, let alone write about beauty without some undermining second thoughts? To “do” beauty is to risk banality, to open oneself to ridicule. To dare it straight out, as John Pass does in his Nowrite.doc (Leaf Press, limited edition chapbook), also “invites despair, despair confronting the unmanageable beauty, the unconstrained beauty no strategy no trope no tone gets true.” As he mows his lawn, repairs the roof, picks raspberries, fixes the toilet and digs potatoes, ruminating all the while on the luxuriant details of his Sunshine Coast surroundings, Pass is a neo-Adam in paradise. If there is a serpent in John Pass’ garden it is the poet’s self-conscious doubts regarding his ability to write about “beauty so complete and complex and aloof and light-footed I often feel useless and burdened before it” But it’s not all roses. There are also kidney stones, a bit of brooding on the deaths of family and friends, worry about his son leaving home and plain old chores. There’s just enough unease in this unabashed paean to keep it from sliding into the bucolic. Whether he is working in his orchard, love-making or lolling in the lake, John Pass conveys a voluptuous sense of place. This chapbook, small enough to fit into a pocket, is a mini-holiday in Eden, a relief from irony, a Thanksgiving hymn. Hannah Main-van der Kamp