Fiona Wright

Fiona Wright is a writer, editor and critic from Sydney. Her most recent book of essays, The World Was Whole, was published in October 2018. Fiona worked as an editor at Giramondo Publishing for five years. She holds a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from Western Sydney University, and is the host of Six Degrees From the City, a podcast about writers and Western Sydney.

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Potts Point' by Fiona Wright

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One • 22 February 2016

for Eileen The light's olderin these sandstone suburbs,jam-thick. A clipped-haired man held a dog leashsaying one of us is single,and even the leaveshad hunched their shouldersin the gutters. A waiter, golden-brown as a bread loaf,squirted water at the pigeonsthat sat cock-headed at the tables. My tartwas soft and skinless. Later, your cat curled fluidly against my legsand watched the water fi ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Crisis Poem' by Fiona Wright

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One • 22 February 2016

for Ian And suddenly:the menare holding beersand standing roundthe trampoline,and not the barbecue;turning over toddlers,instead of steaks.The womenmake the salads. Fiona Wright Recording ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'After Mutability' by Fiona Wright

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One • 22 February 2016

Perhaps the best cells are the ones we can't kill off,a persistence of the fittest, although mutation'salways painful. It's two thousand and fourteen,and I know no-one who has beenuninjured. It thinks in me,this shadow. I put on sunscreen, and am surprisedto come in contact with my skin.In the same day, I'm chatted up in a caféby an aspiring novelist who's using boldfaceand an ugly font, and the ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - New South Wales | 'Smith's Lake' by Fiona Wright

States of Poetry New South Wales - Series One • 22 February 2016

The grass grows longer on the easeway. A pelican swipes the sky towards the seascape we can't yet see,its webby legs outstretched: ... (read more)

'Ode to the Metro', a new poem by Fiona Wright

March 2014, no. 359 • 27 February 2014

There’s a still point in the afternoonwhen the cross-eyed dogsin the smudged pet-shop windoware a distraction: no poems, in this stuck pointof the afternoon, I just watchcross-breeds with shredded paperstuck to their paws. It’s not that bad.Amongst the mutterers in tracksuits and the teenagers in musk-stick shorts,the drivers of retirement villa ... (read more)

Fiona Wright reviews 'Thirty Australian Poets' edited by Felicity Plunkett

December 2011–January 2012, no. 337 • 25 November 2011

Although it has been almost half a century since 1968, a year readily mythologised in Australian poetry, the so-called Generation of ’68 are still the most talked-about contemporary poets. There have been few attempts to define the next generations of poets. Forty-three years is a long definition of what might be deemed ‘contemporary’. ... (read more)