"Magisterium is an intricate collection. There is a subtlety to this poetry that defies any crude attempt to label it ‘political’, while politics remains a deep and orienting awareness in all of Deane’s verse. ...
"This volume, as with his last, is haunted by Deane’s children lost in childbirth, yet one of its last poems, dedicated to his daughter allows a note of healing, however difficult: ‘When, in that perfect moment, I first hold you, / and golden light refracts the lens / of this obsidian heart.’ Obsidian or not, it is clear that there is a fierce, real heart driving Deane’s poetry and like [Judith] Wright’s, it attempts to span this whole country. He is also a poet who cares about how Australia is represented in poetry. ‘Duyken 1606’, which traces the landing of the Dutch East India ship on Cape York Peninsula, is possibly one of our best poems about the first foreign encounters with this continent, written with a courageous sparseness that reveals yet another dimension of this fascinating poet."
- Natalie Owen-Jones, Stylus Poetry Journal
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