Poetry

Vertigo edited by Jordie Albiston & Awake Despite the Hour by Paul Mitchell

Item: Vertigo
Author: David Mccooey

by David McCooey •

October 2007, no. 295

Vertigo: A Cantata edited by Jordie Albiston

John Leonard Press, $23.95 pb, 51 pp, 9780977578757

Awake Despite the Hour by Paul Mitchell

Five Islands Press, $21.95 pb, 70 pp, 9780734036940

Poetry

Vertigo edited by Jordie Albiston & Awake Despite the Hour by Paul Mitchell

by David McCooey •

October 2007, no. 295

Reading Paul Mitchell’s second book of poems during a bout of insomnia seemed apposite not only because of its title but also because Mitchell’s poetry occupies a strange middle place, somewhere between dream and reality. Awake Despite the Hour illustrates Mitchell’s interest in occupying both the ‘real’ (politics, family and the quotidian) and the extramundane (imagination, the surreal and the metaphysical).

David McCooey

By this contributor

David McCooey is a prize-winning poet, critic, and editor. His latest collection of poems is The Book of Falling, published by Upswell Publishing (2023). His first collection, Blister Pack (2005), won the Mary Gilmore Award and was shortlisted for four major national literary awards. He is a professor of literature and writing at Deakin University in Geelong, where he lives. His website is: www.davidmccooey.com