Adam Aitken

Adam Aitken is an Australian poet and the author of seven volumes of poetry, including, most recently, Revenants (Giramondo, 2022). He co-edited Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher & Wattmann, 2013). He was the recipient of the Patrick White Award in 2021.

Adam Aitken reviews 'Dalliance and Scorn' by Alan Gould with drawings by Anne Langridge

July 1999, no. 212 • 01 July 1999

Alan Gould is not noted for being a poet of light verse, but with this volume he has achieved what brewers of light beer aim for strength without the hangover. The blurb rightly highlights Gould’s technique and lyrical gifts, and his acute vision of absurdity is present in abundance. Perhaps Gould has become the Heinrich Heine of Canberra, charting his city of decadence, with its down-and-outs ... (read more)

Adam Aitken reviews 'Mortal Divide: The autobiography of Yiorgos Alexandroglou' by George Alexander

September 1997, no. 194 • 01 September 1997

Mortal Divide is an anti-oedipal odyssey, Joycean roman à clef, migrant memoir, and Orphic mini-epic. Nemerov’s self-reflexive Journal of a Fictive Life is one of its inspirations. George (Yiorgos) is a first-generation Greek translator working at the Multicultural Broadcasting Service. Victim of the media machine, he begins to hear and see things that aren’t ‘real’, including his spectra ... (read more)