Here Passed Your Head

'Here Passed Your Head' is a prose poem addressed to Joseph Conrad, novelist and one-time skipper of the ship Otago, which was eventually scuppered on the banks of the Derwent River. Inspired by the restored teak hatch cover from the Otago, which holds a prominent place in the major gallery of the Maritime Museum of Tasmania, the prose poem references Conrad's novel The Shadow Line, a semi-autobiographical account of his time aboard the Otago.