A huge thanks to Robert Adamson, Yvette Henry Holt, Robbie Coburn and Anne Casey for their generous commentary on my new poetry collection Suburban Fantasy. You can read their kind words below, sample poems from the book here, and if you feel inspired to do so, support Australian poetry by buying a copy from UWA Publishing! “Michele is the finest …
A huge thanks to Tony Messenger for reviewing Engraft and interviewing me on his excellent blog, Messenger’s Booker. Tony is an indefatigable supporter of Australian poetry and his blog is a fantastic resource. I particularly love his author interviews. Here’s a taste of mine: Q. Both of your works are very “unsettling” and in “Dead Ottla” (a poem sourced from …
I’ve recently had a chapbook—HUSH—published by the wonderful small Australian Blank Rune Press. The publisher, Valli Poole, was a dream to work with—she’s so passionate and particular about what she does, and as a result the books (which she hand-makes) are exquisite. Blank Rune only do a very limited print run, and Valli has told me HUSH has almost sold …
I had a blast talking to the lovely Alice Allan on her new podcast, Poetry Says. We spoke about a poem I’ve become rather obsessed with, Elizabeth Bishop’s ‘Giant Snail‘. I liked the poem so much, in fact, that I wrote one of my own inspired by it! You can listen to the podcast here and read my homage to ‘Giant …
I’ve had an angry little poem published over on the excellent Bluepepper — the place for poetry with bite. This poem certainly has some! Thanks to editor Justin Lowe for his unfailing support. Graffiti Degrade degrade degrade yourself take care to curl up small. Have I grown compact enough? Unfurl me at your peril. In the lengthening autumn of my shadow …
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. …
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, …