Impractical, technophobic, shy and a nervous traveller, James Harpur suspected he had the perfect qualities for not going to Australia when the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize gave him the chance to visit the country in 2017. House-sitting in Melbourne, expecting to be quietly writing and researching his putative ancestor, Charles Harpur, the ‘father of Australian poetry’, the Irish poet instead had one of the most intense and varied months of his life. He met a cast of unforgettable characters, and came across the menagerie of Australia’s wildlife, but none more delightful than Sappho, the arthritic cat under his temporary care.
