Tom Pow's beautiful, powerful poems examine the remarkable life of Thomas Watling. Watling was born in Dumfries in September 1762 and raised by a long-suffering maiden aunt. Convicted of forging Bank of Scotland one-guinea notes he was sentenced to fourteen years in the recently founded colony of Botany Bay in Australia. The first professional artist to arrive in the colony, Watling was seconded to its Surgeon General (and amateur naturalist) John White. His pioneer paintings of birds, animals and the landscape became some of the principal records of the earliest days of Australia. He was eventually pardoned, on 5 April 1797, and left Australia, eventually returning home to Dumfries. He died there, most likely in 1814.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Thomas Watling: Biographical Notes
• Prelude: A World of Light
• Part One: Arrest
  • The Bank of Scotland Advises its Dumfries Agent David Staig, 20 Sept 1788
  • Watling, Captured, has a New Sense of Self
  • Watling, in his Own Defence
  • His Aunt May Speaks Up
  • Watling’s Dirge: Scotia Farewell
• Part Two: Transportation
  • On Board Ship, Bound for the Colony
  • Watling, Surprised, on Arrival
  • The Forger’s First Lesson
  • The Afterlife of Names
    • From the Letters I
  • Behold a Fish, Spangled with Gold
  • What Picture do they Carry in their Heads?
  • Watling Anticipates Billie Holiday
  • Drought Turns his Thoughts to Home
  • Watling Reacts Favourably to a Freak Fall of Snow
  • A History Lesson from Lingerie Girl
  • Watling Plays Dominoes: A Nocturne
  • Thoughts to Depress a Man of Sentiment
  • Watling and the Prince of Pickpockets
  • Watling Dreams of the Fish Market
  • The First and Final Poem
  • Letters! Letters!
    • From the Letters II
  • Watling and the Australians
    • 1. The Uses of Time
    • 2. Night Fires
    • 3. Baneelon, a Failed Experiment
  • The First Gulag
    • 1. Educating the Politicals
    • 2. Watling Does his Time, While the Irish Head North
    • 3. Watling Envies the So-called Martyr, Thomas Muir, Transported for Disseminating Paine’s Rights of Man
    • From the Letters III
  • Watling’s Legacy – The Flora and Fauna of “Terra Nullius”
    • 1. Introducing the Echidna (The Spiny Anteater) and Some Stories Told About It
    • 2. Legend
    • 3. Lorikeets
    • 4. Watling Paints a Banksia, Or, The Dark Side of Enlightenment
    • 5. The Turcosine Parrot
  • Two Hands, Two Stories
  • Watling’s Everywhen
• Part Three: Calcutta
  • From the Letters IV (Unpublished)
• Part Four: Return
  • The Adventurer Returns
  • Samuel Johnson Anticipates Watling, 1773
  • The Making of the Artist Watling
  • Watling Does a Selling Job
  • Watling’s Child
    • 1. Rogue and Whore
    • 2. The Living and The Dead
  • Market Day, Dumfries
  • Watling and the Political Sphere
    • 1. Ornithology
    • 2. Watling Dreams of What is his Due
  • A Striking Similarity Between the Last Letters of Burns (1796) and Watling (1814)
  • After Many Years of Silence, a Last Request
• Postscript
  • Keen to Hold a Guinea Note in My Hand
• Notes
• Acknowledgements
• Epitaphs