Australian Poetry
'Axis 12. Addenda' (for Pam Brown), a new poem by A.J. Carruthers
for C.
d, undrilled
rock
Had it been
wanted how had
Jennifer Strauss reviews 'The Best Australian Poems 2014' edited by Geoff Page
‘Lending printed eloquence to a poem’ comes from ‘Alas’, Chris Wallace-Crabbe’s elegiac tribute to Seamus Heaney. There is eloquence aplenty in this fine collection of more than a hundred and twenty poems edited by poet Geoff Page, someone who understands that eloquence speaks in many tones and in various formal structures. This variety is generously represented here, even if, as a result of Page’s allegiance to ‘a broad church’ of Australian poetry and his wish to represent its full range of tendencies in a way that will speak to a congregation of ‘average reader[s]’, the collection treads lightly in the realm of experimental or avant-garde poetry.
... (read more)Tracy Ryan is Poet of the Month
Thursday, 01 January 2015Lesbia Harford would have been interesting to meet, because of her unconventionality and political views, in addition to the poetry. Earlier, Percy Shelley, for similar reasons.
... (read more)Libby Hart’s new collection is ornate and knotty in a way that the reader would never divine from its cover, which is clear and white, with ‘wild’ in plain green typescript. It is essentially a bestiary, with birds of all kinds, as well as other creatures, including humans, in wild places, blown by winds and salt spray, or bringing wildness to ‘settled’ human habitations. There is a kind of emulsion of the direct and the opaque in her style that makes the mythic, fabulous elements appear to flow out of nature, directly, but in fact it is more as if we were in a wunderkammer of natural history, where the labels on the exhibits go beyond the call of duty and try to tell us everything about everything.
... (read more)High dungeon was a feeling I knew well
When mockery from men weighed on my soul.
As your Prime Minister I went through hell,
If I can say so without hyperbowl.
I am building my roof of turf my peaty sheath
a coveted blanket roll me up in it and I go out
like a light like the wisp rising at night
that country people swear they see and steer clear of
Evan Jones’s Selected Poems is more than timely: its author was born in 1931. In an introduction (or ‘Personal Appreciation’), fellow Melbourne poet Alex Skovron complains that ‘Evan’s work has not always received the attention it deserves, especially in recent years’. It is worth pausing a moment to consider why this should be so.
Jones i ...
What’s on a judge’s mind? Litigants and advocates would love to know. Former judge Peter Heerey answers that question in his latest book, a compendium of writing over many years, covering a vast array of topics and in myriad forms.
... (read more)1.
Anywhere’s more homely
than this field day to mortality,
accumulating severances
that wrangle distance
like before and after’s rosary of rue.