Brendan Ryan

Anthony Lawrence’s latest collection of poetry, Skinned by Light: Poems 1989–2002, a revision of his New and Selected (1998), is a much tighter work than its predecessor – 121 as against 335 pages. While some may wonder why UQP has published another ‘Selected’ from Lawrence in the space of four years, the publication of his novel, In the Half Light (2000), justifies introducing Lawrence ... (read more)

Hooded eyes, eyelashes thinning, she tailgates a semi,keeping up with him in case she breaks down.The truckie has her measure in his rear-view mirror –an old Falcon tracking the loneliness between Horsham and Koroit.Wide verges, scoria tracks radiating back to chimneyed farmhouses,the country she passes through steadies her like a needle:years of croquet, bowls and a Depression habit of not spen ... (read more)

Geoff Page’s latest poetry collection is a wide-ranging survey of some of the issues affecting contemporary Australian life. Underpinning Page’s poems of cafés, apartments, classical music, outback murders and domestic violence is a meditation on approaching mortality and the very idea of belief. In Page’s previous collection, Darker and Lighter (2001), the troubling nature of belief was hi ... (read more)