Judith Beveridge’s Hook and Eye is a collection of previously published poems selected to showcase the highly regarded Australian poet’s work to an American readership. The poems are for the most part imaginatively — rather than autobiographically — conceived, lyrical while still remaining largely outward looking, and full of the sensual imagery and sound-play for which Beveridge’s work is prized. …
A few weeks ago I was fortunate to be part of the 3rd Sydney International Women’s Poetry & Arts Festival, an inspirational event directed by poet, activist, feminist and filmmaker Saba Vasefi. I first read my poetry at this event in 2014, and have since become firm friends with Saba, working with her on the festival each year as its …
Well it’s done! Engraft has officially been launched, and I couldn’t be happier. The room was full, the crowd were kind, and some books were sold. Phew! Distinguished poet and critic Martin Langford was generous enough to launch the book, and Rochford Street Review were good enough to publish the speech he gave. Martin said: “Writing has a complex relationship …
Good Lord, it’s a book! My first poetry collection, Engraft, has just been published by Island Press, one of Australia’s oldest and most well respected independent poetry publishers. Which is all rather exciting! Here’s a sneak peek from the book: pirate up on the plateau dog running sprightly in the wind ears flapping triumphantly teeth bared in what is surely …
I recently had the honour of featuring as a guest on the excellent blog of poet Julie Maclean. She has some very generous things to say and has published three of my new poems! Please take a read, and thank you Julie!
I recently had my poem, ‘Southerly Buster’, included in a fabulous initiative, Spirit of Sydney – Poetry Alive, organised by Australian poet Les Wicks. For those who’ve not experienced one, a Southerly Buster is a weather phenomenon synonymous with long hot Sydney summers. After days of increasing heat, powerful cold fronts charge up the New South Wales coast, bringing abrupt and extreme …
Your fierce face on the pillow— brows spearing down towards wide bisected koala nose succulent lips acute resilient chin. Tonight you are troubled by concerns beyond your scope: baffling sorrows pervading childhood’s lair… Felt inside the strident pitch of your father on the telephone; the tremulous tone of your mother’s lullabies. Felt in the streak of the cat, the slink …
Before Bone and Viscera, the third of Robbie Coburn’s publications is, like its predecessors, an unsettling read. This slim but intense volume is comprised of a ‘Prologue’ plus ten poems, and explores the dual territory—previously traversed in his chapbook Human Batteries (Picaro Press, 2012), and first full-length collection Rain Season (Picaro Press, 2013)—of the tortured rural landscape of …
My mother’s house surrounds me in a shroud: the tinkling of the teaspoon as my father stirs his tea, his tea; the chug of the washing machine that never dies. The tubular wind chimes casting their cool auric spell around us; the complaint of the floorboards bearing up our lives. And the busyness, of the birds in bush …
Distance, Nathanael O’Reilly’s first full-length poetry collection, is separated into three sections – ‘Australia’, ‘Europe’ and ‘America’ – the first and most substantial section (which deals with the experience of growing up in Australia) functioning as the emotional cornerstone of the collection. The title and section headings immediately alert us to the major themes of the book – distance, separation, …