'For myfirst ten years I grew up in Lavender Bay with the smell of salt water, in housesfacing the grey curved eye of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There was a distantrumble, like thunder, when trains went across.'

This is a lyrical and honest memoir of a poet's lifein Sydney. From Lavender Bay to Lindfield, Geoff Lehmann tells the story of hislife as a poet, tax lawyer, member of the Sydney Push, single father to threesmall children and finally, a happily married man who returns to poetry writingand translation. His life and work crosses with some of the leading culturalfigures of the twentieth century and beyond Les Murray, Judith Wright,Christopher Brennan, Clive James. He traces the contours of his own life andhis family history, and the contours of particular slice of Sydney.