Stepping Over Seasons (PDF)

Stepping Over Seasons artfully depicts the finer details of life, encapsulating change within people and places as the seasons unfurl. In ‘Overlook’, Capes argues that it’s much easier for great poets to romanticise the world’s most classic cities by poetically and playfully ridiculing his own not-so-romantic Australian hometown.


Asserting that, in this digital age, everything can be recorded in some way, the poem ‘Late Night’ claims there is no longer a need for people to appreciate things “in the moment”.


The poem ‘Leaking’ describes the love seeping out of two people with the momentum of a leaking tap.


Ashley teaches Media and English in Victoria. Prior to this he worked in community arts and music retail, while completing studies at Monash University. Ashley sings in a band and is slowly learning piano. He is currently addicted to Studio Ghibli films and spends a lot of time reading the haiku masters like Basho and Issa, along with his favourite Beat poets, particularly Ferlinghetti.

His work can be found in a range of Australian publications. Most recently his poetry has appeared in Island, Westerly, Cordite and the bi-lingual journal Red Leaves. His haiku has appeared in Stylus Poetry Journal, Notes from the Gean and Paper Wasp. In 2002 he co-founded Egg(Poetry) and currently works on web publications holland1945 and kipple, while moderating online renku group Issa’s Snail. Ashley’s first collection of poetry was pollen and the storm (2008).

Somehow throughout university he managed to continue reading, writing and listening to poetry, films and music, especially the haiku of Issa and Basho and the films of Alfred Hitchcock.