Lyn Jacobs

Lyn Jacobs reviews 'Patrick White' by Brian Kiernan

April 1981, no. 29 • 01 April 1981

Despite the title of the parent program, the aims of the Commonwealth Writers Series are not small. These paperback editions propose: … a panoptic survey of a writer’s work, assessing its significance and merits, and conveying the critic’s enjoyment of the writer concerned, within a total length of between 96 and 176 pages. Each book will have a Survey chapter, placing the major works an ... (read more)

Lyn Jacobs reviews 'The Seal Woman' by Beverley Farmer

September 1992, no. 144 • 01 September 1992

This is an elegant and satisfying novel. Like fine food, good sex, lasting relationships, and memorable music, it takes time to develop and the artistry that sustains it is understated and deceptive. It is, however, memorable. There is the instant gratification of Farmer’s delicate but sensuous prose and a finely woven narrative about a Danish woman, Dagmar, who is ‘over-wintering’ in Austra ... (read more)

Lyn Jacobs reviews 'Singles: Shorter works 1981–1986' by John A. Scott

August 1989, no. 113 • 01 August 1989

This is John A. Scott’s sixth collection of poems since 1975. The volume is slim but not thin. Each poem encompasses its observation, reflection, or moment from which departures are measured, as the positives and negatives of ‘delicious solitude’ are weighed. Amid urban blues, bar-speak, team games and the distorting foci of others’ projections, the ‘predicate adjective alone’ evokes e ... (read more)

Lyn Jacobs reviews 'Excavation' by Gig Ryan

November 1990, no. 126 • 01 November 1990

This is a distinctive and unsettling voice, one that doesn’t have time for overly polite concessions to our finer feelings. You either keep pace (and it’s compelling) or stand aside as the spadework gets done. Reading this poetry, we are involved in an unearthing of past events and made witness to the laying bare of personal response. But there’s nothing self-indulgent or hollow about Gig Ry ... (read more)

Lyn Jacobs reviews 'Blue Notes' by Laurie Duggan

December 1990–January 1991, no. 127 • 01 December 1990

This collection of poetry is similarly accommodating. It is shaped by four quite different tonal movements: ‘All Blues’ (eight lyrics closely observing the ‘still life’ within season, art-work, society and self), ‘Trans-Europe Express’ (a travelogue of past times and places where conscious reflection momentarily counters the movement and cross-currents of historical process), ‘Dogs ... (read more)