Poetry

Observer effect

Three new poetry collections

by Ella Jeffery •

January–February 2021, no. 428

Poetry

Observer effect

Three new poetry collections

by Ella Jeffery •

January–February 2021, no. 428

Precise observation is considered a prerequisite for poetry, but there are limits as to what a surfeit of detail can bring to a poem, or even to an entire volume. Three new poetry collections, each different in tone and subject matter, deploy close observation to varying degrees of success across poems that scrutinise domestic tension, interspecies dynamics, landscape, and everyday grace.

Ella Jeffery

By this contributor

Ella Jeffery is a poet, editor, and academic. Her first collection of poems, Dead Bolt, won the Puncher & Wattmann Prize for a First Book of Poetry and was published in June 2020. She holds a PhD from Queensland University of Technology and in 2019 won the Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award.