Jennifer Strauss

Jennifer Strauss reviews 'Flashing Eyes and Floating Hair: A reading of Gwen Harwood’s pseudonymous poetry' by Cassandra L. Atherton

July–August 2007, no. 293 • 01 July 2007

Literary criticism is a rara avis in Australia’s publishing world, perhaps only to be hoped for under an imprint such as Australian Scholarly Publishing. Yet a search of its recent publications shows that among nineteen titles this is the only instance – and one facilitated by a Melbourne University publishing grant. Rightly so, for Cassandra L. Atherton’s is academic writing in the best sen ... (read more)

Jennifer Strauss reviews 'New Zealand Love Poems: An Oxford anthology' edited by Lauris Edmond

May 2001, no. 230 • 01 May 2001

For those who haven’t yet discovered the riches of New Zealand poetry, this anthology should provide an appetite-whetting introduction. Edited by one of New Zealand’s finest poets, the late Lauris Edmond (1924–2000), it bears the stamp of a thoughtful mind and a judiciously discriminating sensibility, evident in her own work as in her selection from that of others. For she has neither lost h ... (read more)

Jennifer Strauss reviews 'True Thoughts' by Pam Brown

June 2009, no. 312 • 01 June 2009

Since her début in 1971, Pam Brown has been a consistently intelligent and engaging presence in Australian poetry, if too often under-represented in those reputation-establishers, the anthologies. One pragmatic reason for this may lie in a further element of consistency, the formal structure of her poems. Poems that spin their way down the page, resolutely short-lined, or ones that fragment lines ... (read more)

Jennifer Strauss reviews 'The Feather Boy & Other Poems' by Judith Rodriguez

March 2019, no. 409 • 25 February 2019

Judith Rodriguez, who died in November 2018, was a champion of other people’s causes: the right to be heard, the right to freedom from persecution, the right to refuge when such freedom is denied. She was also a champion of poetry and gave generously of her time and energy to fighting its corner. Generations of fledgling poets profited from her mentoring; generations of students were introduced ... (read more)

Jennifer Strauss reviews 'The Best Australian Poems 2014' edited by Geoff Page

January-February 2015, no. 368 • 01 January 2015

‘Lending printed eloquence to a poem’ comes from ‘Alas’, Chris Wallace-Crabbe’s elegiac tribute to Seamus Heaney. There is eloquence aplenty in this fine collection of more than a hundred and twenty poems edited by poet Geoff Page, someone who understands that eloquence speaks in many tones and in various formal structures. This variety is generously represented here, even if, as a resul ... (read more)