Sarah Holland Batt
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To celebrate the best books of 2017 Australian Book Review invited nearly forty contributors to nominate their favourite titles. Contributors include Michelle de Kretser, Susan Wyndham, James Ley, Geordie Williamson, Jane Sullivan, Tom Griffiths, Mark Edele, and Brenda Niall.
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To complement our coverage of new books on the subject, we invited a number of writers, scholars, and environmentalists to nominate the books that have had the greatest effect on them from an environmental point of view.
... (read more)Contemporary Australian Poetry edited by Martin Langford et. al.
Originally published in German, Albrecht Dümling’s The Vanished Musicians: Jewish refugees in Australia (Peter Lang), a fascinating compendium of Jewish musicians who found refuge in Australia in the 1930s and 1940s, is now available in Australian Diana K. Weekes’s excellent translation ...
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My first poetic influences were all American, due to the fact that I spent my critical early reading years in the United States. My poetic imagination is steeped in the disjecta membra of poets like Bishop, Stevens, Bogan, Dickinson, Ammons, Lowell, Moore, Hughes, Rich, and Eliot; I couldn’t erase their presence if I tried. Bishop, in particular, is a poet I never tire of – her forensic eye and tremendous command of the line are extraordinary. Beyond those earliest influences, there are too many poets to begin naming names, for fear of never stopping. Recently, I’ve been blown over by the exquisite, savage poems of Pascale Petit, particularly those in Fauverie.
... (read more)As I combed it,
he sat cross-legged
in front of me ...
We tread the wood in J. Crew,
pluck grey seersucker and navy cashmere
and talk about dressing for the seasons ...
In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Sarah Holland-Batt reads her poem 'Quetzalcoatl' which features in the 2016 QLD anthology.
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