Gerald Dawe's poems are lakes which mirror the world with great precision, reflecting and redoubling even its smallest details. They are a brave and risk-taking achievement, finely tuned and perfectly pitched, poems which look deceptively simple but which mask the subtle sophistication of their artistry with the nifty nonchalance of their delivery.
                                                          — Dennis O'Driscoll (1995)

Lake Geneva is a deft and absorbing collection of intensely contemporary poems. The abiding themes of love, mortality and social change are treated here with searching lyricism. This collection culminates in the title poem's panoramic vision of the 'interface' between the poet's past and present in the awe-inspiring landscape of Lake Geneva.

For me, though, what's 'as good as it gets' is that there's a poet of Dawe's scrupulous tact and talent who persists in seeing and saying the world as it is, with neither fanfare nor capitulation, simply 'paying particular attention/ to the exact moment - whatever it was.'
                                                                                                                                              — Eamon Grennan, The Irish Times

Lake Geneva contains acutely observed, lyrical poems of a modesty that is nevertheless undoubtedly finely-worked and rewarding to read in a grown-up, non-idiotic way. These are poems that don't mistake the finely honed observation for the finished product.
                                                                                                                                                 — Leontia Flynn, Fortnight