Australian Poetry

The woman’s hands
are tied behind her back –

her hands are not allowed
to speak for her.
The interrogator lays his knife

Radiance by Andy Kissane

August 2014, no. 363

Andy Kissane’s fourth collection, Radiance, is a heartening answer to those who, like publisher Stephen Matthews, lament that ‘many modern poets choose to shroud their work in point-scoring obscurity at a time when clarity and accessibility might encourage more people to read poetry’. Kissane doesn’t address this issue directly, but his book is an important negative instance.

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'The Bluetongue as an Answer to the Anxiety of Reputation', a new poem by Andy Kissane

by Andy Kissane •

August 2014, no. 363

Three bluetongues reside in our steep bush garden
of sandstone ledges and the stumps of fallen trees.
One is content to doze under a rock while around her
everyone chatters; one lost the pointy end of its tail

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Cordite Poetry Review: Issue 46.0 edited by Kent MacCarter

by Peter Kenneally •

June–July 2014, no. 362

Peter Kenneally reviews 'Cordite Poetry Review', issue 46 edited by Kent MacCarter

The latest edition of this exclusively online poetry journal has no theme, but Cordite’s managing editor, Kent MacCarter, makes a virtue of its lack of subject. He builds the edition around a chapbook he has collated that is called ‘Spoon bending’, arguing around and against the proposition that ‘There’s no such thing as a good poem about nothing’, and opening with a splendidly effervescent argument in favour of hybridisation and play in poetry.

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Australian Poetry Journal: Vol. 3, No. 2 edited by Bronwyn Lea

by Des Cowley •

June–July 2014, no. 362

Des Cowley reviews 'Australian Poetry Journal', vol. 3 no. 2 edited by Bronwyn Lea

My first encounter with concrete poetry came via Apollinaire’s Calligrammes (1918), specifically his eye-catching poem ‘Il Pleut’. With its gently cascading words falling down the page, it was immediately clear that the typographic arrangement of the poem was of far greater import than its semantic content.

Although the term was not coined until the 1950s, concrete poetry draws upon traditions as diverse as ancient Greek shaped poems, Lewis Carroll’s ‘The Mouse’s Tale’, and the typographic experiments found in early twentieth-century Dada and Futurist publications. Despite this, concrete poetry has historically fallen between the cracks of various critical discourses. Is it art or is it poetry?

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Roman Bridges by

by Simon West •

June–July 2014, no. 362

The springing point was where they took off from,
where the impost, set on good footings,
joined the arch and assured its leap and span
of water’s being there yet flowing on.

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White Cyclamen by

by Jennifer Maiden •

June–July 2014, no. 362

Nothing is whiter,
like clouds with the sun inside them.
Nothing is smoother,
like clouds and the moon beside them.

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City Lights: San Francisco by

by Eileen Chong •

June–July 2014, no. 362

I was reading a poem in that upstairs sunlit room
when I looked up and thought I saw you, Harry,
standing beside the window across from the apartment
where laundry hung outside like a fireman’s ladder snaking

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Personal Weather by Peter Bakowski

by Geoff Page •

May 2014, no. 361

Geoff Page reviews 'Personal Weather' by Peter Bakowski

Personal Weather is Peter Bakowski’s seventh collection, yet he remains impossible to categorise. His is a distant relative of Ken Bolton’s conversational style, while also a close cousin to central European poetry. His poems can be three-page narratives or urbanised haiku. Above all, Bakowski is a poet of wonder – wonder at the contradictions and complexity of life as it passes him by. He is also very personal, both in his use of the autobiographical ‘I’ and in his idiosyncratic takes on more objective material.

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