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''With its beer-drenched Blundstones, cricket balls retrieved from neighbour's backyards, misbehaving pastor's kids and crabs plucked from the Moyne river, O'Reilly's poetry collects and curates a series of vernacular objects and experiences that comprise life in Australia and beyond. From the streets of Ballarat to the dry highways of West Texas, from the floor of a petrol station in rural NSW to the evening sky seen from a Scottish beach, this poetry traverses continents, testing spaces and locations and finding them brimming with their own types of desire. Using a light touch and an elegant voice, Distance traces out nostalgia's peculiar contours and emotional resonances, resulting in remarkable poetic moments that will return and whisper again to a reader even after the book is set down.' - Lachlan Brown, author of Limited Cities 'Joseph Brodsky, the Russian Nobel laureate, once remarked that memory and art have in common the "ability to select, a taste for detail". In the work of Nathanael O'Reilly, memory and art come together to bring us poems that remember what cannot - what must not - be forgotten, in rich and telling detail and with a taste for quiet but incisive irony.' - Paul Kane, author of A Slant of Light, Work Life and Australian Poetry: Romanticism and Negativity 'Nathanael O'Reilly's poems sound the major themes of Australian poetry: landscape, displacement, yearning, and above all a critique of cultural narrowness. O'Reilly's plain-spoken diction is often laced with understated wit, but is given ballast by its principled grounding in lived experience.' - Nicholas Birns, editor of Antipodes' (Publication summary)
Notes
-
Dedication:
For Tricia & Celeste,
Mum & Dad,
Sean,
and the good friends who have shared my journey
-
Chapbook.
Contents
- Crabbingi"Sitting on the docks", single work poetry (p. 11-12)
-
Doncaster, Circa 1977i"When I lived next door to Max Walker",
single work
poetry
(p. 13)
Note: As 'Doncaster, 1977'.
- Ballarat Scenes, single work poetry (p. 14-17)
- Floodwatersi"Driving slowly through floodwaters", single work poetry (p. 18)
- Moreton Bayi"Four boys and two fathers,", single work poetry (p. 19)
- Suburban Fantasyi"As pre-pubescent boys roaming", single work poetry (p. 20)
- First Killi"Pressing the butt of the four-ten", single work poetry (p. 21)
- Golden Fleecei"Regaining consciousness", single work poetry (p. 22)
- Saturday Night On The Goulburni"We camped on a sandbank", single work poetry (p. 23)
- Falling through Uncertaintyi"After nightfall we pedalled", single work poetry (p. 24-25)
- Near Drowningi"Half an hour into an afternoon", single work poetry (p. 26)
- Closeri"The rains came and flushed", single work poetry (p. 27)
- Fruit Pickingi"During the summer holidays", single work poetry (p. 28-29)
- Cider Buzzi"We met at the Cricketer's Arms", single work poetry (p. 30)
- French Accenti"Coming home from the milk bar", single work poetry (p. 31)
- Sinkingi"Lying on the floor", single work poetry (p. 32)
- Tzatzikii"In the Lebanese restaurant on Sydney Road", single work poetry (p. 33)
- Secular Baptismi"The pastor's son spent", single work poetry (p. 34)
- The Pastor and His Daughteri"The pastor drives you home", single work poetry (p. 35)
- The Backyard, the Coffeei"While taking the rubbish out", single work poetry (p. 36)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Michele Seminara Reviews Distance by Nathanael O’Reilly
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , April no. 17 2015;
— Review of Distance 2014 selected work poetry
-
Michele Seminara Reviews Distance by Nathanael O’Reilly
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , April no. 17 2015;
— Review of Distance 2014 selected work poetry