AustLit

'Richard James Allen has returned to the form of artistic expression that launched his manifold career almost forty years ago: poetry. The result is an accomplished meditation on love, life, and artistry.'  (Introduction)

'In his debut poetry collection, Flat Exit, Broede Carmody writes with surety and a richness of feeling. His purpose is to establish “a way of seeing” — he quotes his favourite poet, Gwen Harwood, in his Preface — and he stakes his claim with the words: “Mine, as it’s been so far” (xi). “So far” is a lifetime measured out in words. Short words for a young life: Carmody is in his mid-twenties. It seems that Carmody’s youth gives him a fresher voice, an edgier perspective, than other more established poets while his wide-reading in literature is evident in the polyphony of influences audible behind his warmly-inflected poetic voice.'  (Introduction)

'Eddie Paterson’s Redactor, a collection of poet-censored poems, compels the reader to creatively interact with the text in search of meanings. With its blacked-out words (mostly names but also other identifiers), the poetry forms an act of resistance against contemporary consumer capitalism. Witty, memorable, and offbeat, Paterson’s poetry makes the banal seem beautiful and the mundane magnificent even as our physical and virtual existences are subject to ever-increasing surveillance. ' (Introduction)

'Kristen Lang’s deftly-crafted poetry collection, SkinNotes, scrawls its emotive verse across the skin of the self. It is not indelible ink and it would not matter if it were, as the body is transient just as the words we wield, weave, and write exist only for a brief time.'  (Introduction)

'Omar Sakr’s compelling debut poetry collection, These Wild Houses, explores both writerly and readerly themes through the extended metaphor of the house as human body. Some houses stand for the constant reader, ponderous and seemingly solid; others, as Judith Beverage suggests in her perceptive introduction, are “metaphors for states of being” (xiii) experienced by writer and reader both. Sakr’s poetic states of being are complex and nuanced almost to the point of paradox. This riddling complexity is occasionally ruptured by a bluntly-delivered and vivid observation, so vital and so powerful, creating a visceral reading experience.' (Introduction)