Welcome to 'Poem of the Week' with Australian Book Review. Each Thursday a different poet will introduce and read his or her poem. We are delighted to be making a lasting record of these poets' voices. We hope that you enjoy hearing these poems, freely available on our website. 'Poem of the Week' also gives us an opportunity to offer longer poems.

'Poem of the Week' is just one part of our coverage of Australian poetry. Each issue carries new poems as well as reviews of recent poetry collections. We welcome submissions from new and established poets. The Peter Porter Poetry Prize (worth a total of $7,500) is one of the country's most prestigious literary prizes. In coming months we will also introduce States of Poetry – an innovative series of state and territory anthologies of new poetry, curated by different local poets.

Our inaugural 'Poem of the Week' is 'Are You Ready to Go Superfast?' by Kent MacCarter.

Lisa Gorton
ABR Poetry Editor

Are You Ready to Go Superfast?

Osteospermum jucundum

to be with the dancing women

           cosecants of how their diet pops

wet mimeographs         is to be organised just off

           the gravitas of early jitterbugs

stems and earlier         still

           peahen down to portrait calm         and votes

their faire frou frou

           to fly and woo as tai

babilonia twisting there         a calatrava

           cantilevered onto stamps in paraguay

the telephony of english butter

            say         or our aperitif of snowbank

are you ready to go superfast

            on de beers the carat of massachusetts

to be with the dancing women is singeing weed         boy

            george s wind up

chameleon and it s so meteoric why the african

            coastline         resembling a llama s head

sip bent for antarctic         ice

            skates the retina of lake

victoria         you re a daisy if you do

Kent MacCarter is a writer and editor living in Castlemaine. He is the author of three poetry collections – In the Hungry Middle of Here (Transit Lounge, 2009), Ribosome Spreadsheet (Picaro, 2011) and Sputnik's Cousin (Transit Lounge, 2014). He also edited of Joyful Strains: Making Australia Home (Affirm Press, 2013), a non-fiction collection of diasporic memoir. He is Managing Editor of Cordite Poetry Review. 'Are You Ready to Go Superfast?' was first published in the September 2015 issue of Australian Book Review.