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John Kinsella

John Kinsella

John Kinsella is the author of over forty books. His most recent publications include the novel Lucida Intervalla (UWA Publishing 2018), Open Door (UWA Publishing, 2018); On the Outskirts (UQP, 2017), and Drowning in Wheat: Selected poems (Picador, 2016). His poetry collections have won a variety of awards, including the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry and the Christopher Brennan Award for Poetry. His volumes of stories include In the Shade of the Shady Tree (Ohio University Press, 2012), Crow’s Breath (Transit Lounge, 2015), and Old Growth (Transit Lounge, 2017). His volumes of criticism include Activist Poetics: Anarchy in the Avon Valley (Liverpool University Press, 2010) and Polysituatedness (Manchester University Press, 2017). He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Environment at Curtin University. With Tracy Ryan he is the co-editor of The Fremantle Press Anthology of The Western Australian Poetry (2017). He lives with his family in the Western Australian wheatbelt.

'Zoo Visits', a poem by John Kinsella

February 2010, no. 318 • 01 February 2010
He polished his car to a shine, he kepta ‘clean machine’ inside and out, but downfrom ‘up north’, the red dirt would stayin the seams of doors, around the fittings.A detailing of distance. A truth unto itself. What to do with us, having travelledso far – the access-visit ontology, a divorcedbloke’s existential crisis. Kids aren’t goingto live on feelings alone for an afternoon,they ... (read more)

'Pastiche Eclogue with Randolph Stow’s "Ishmael"', a poem by John Kinsella

August 2021, no. 434 • 26 July 2021
When Ishmael escaped from the closed Bibleon the dresser with family names that were only tangentially yours, you looked to the emergencysite for inclemency and found fire was rapidly approaching via dire easterlies that actually start from the southand over the stretch of time just inside a zone sharply bend west to gather inner heat, saying, I love as muchas your weight of extracted moisture, ... (read more)

'Hailstone Villanelle', a new poem by John Kinsella

October 2019, no. 415 • 25 September 2019
Hailstones in misshapen formation pound on roof corrugations,distorted in scrying before reaching their target,feathers and leaves stripped, birds and trees in transition. To taste the fracture when air pressure is shaken and unshaken,and lightning brings its personalised thunder close to a house in retreat,hailstones misshapen in formation pound on the roof’s corrugations. What can you porten ... (read more)

'Graphology Endgame 100: I am a dickhead' by John Kinsella | States of Poetry WA - Series Two

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series Two • 13 October 2017
I am a dickhead in ways I thought I wasn’tI am a dickhead in ways people who call me a dickhead can’t imagineI am a dickhead in ways people who call me a dickhead can imagineI am a dickhead with residues and hangovers of misapplications of beliefsI am a dickhead whose interior was an adequate backdrop for exterior worldsI am a dickhead who has tried to leap synaptic gaps to make conversationI ... (read more)

'Grasshopper' by John Kinsella | States of Poetry WA - Series Two

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series Two • 13 October 2017
Grasshopper on the window, the flyscreen, and stepping outinto the beige heat, over us. Tangled in our hair, hooked to our backs. Grasshopper, cod wisdom. Grasshopper contraband on the eye-out for plagues. The Australian Plague Locust and its tendency to shift character when gathered together. In worship. In parliament.O phase polyphenism, in which morphology and social disposition shift. And t ... (read more)

'Detracking the Body Examinate' by John Kinsella | States of Poetry WA - Series Two

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series Two • 13 October 2017
We are thrilled to find evidence of roos returning –after being driven out of the reserve and slaughteredby hunters, the survivors are finding refuge at Jam Tree Gully.The vestiges of the old mob. And maybe new mob driventhis way by hunters down on Victoria Plains. In the long grassthey hide. They make tracks and graze and flattenareas for rest. They are maintaining out of sight. I walk with Ti ... (read more)

'Sui Generis' by John Kinsella | States of Poetry WA - Series Two

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series Two • 13 October 2017
It rained heavy, ridiculously heavy, when the heatwas at its peak, and then it went dry – the ebb & flowof the surface-water, the water soaked deep. It’sthin-on now, even vanished. A dry creeping towardslonger cold nights. The tank is down to 20 000 litres,or thereabouts. And no clean air for weeks, as farmershave burnt their tinderish stubble to ash, so volatilethe flames have mostly esca ... (read more)

'Swimming Pool' by John Kinsella | States of Poetry WA - Series Two

States of Poetry Western Australia - Series Two • 13 October 2017
for Lorraine and Tony Not an expression of wealth but one of quiet desperation,the heat and dry eviscerating hope – a giant shadehouseof green cloth, and an above-ground keyholeswimming pool, with avocadoes and ferns edgingthe cement slabs, aura in the midday twilight. And the red dust, too fine to shut out, decoratingthe aqua-emerald waters, a wound open from an attackof the inland leviathan, ... (read more)
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