AustLit

'Stuart Cooke is a well-travelled poet. Although he now resides in Brisbane, where he is a lecturer in creative writing at Griffith University, he draws upon the Kimberley and Chile in his writing. From this experience, his project as a poet, critic and editor could be said to be one of decentring Australian poetics, of taking it away from its power bases in Sydney and Melbourne and situating it in far less familiar spaces. In this essay, I will focus on three of his works: Departure Into Cloud, Bulu Line and Speaking the Earth's Languages. While my essay in in three distinct parts, corresponding to the three books, I return to certain themes and questions throughout. In considering Cooke's works together, I want to acknowledge his important contribution to poetry in Australia. But his works are simply a starting point, a place of departure, towards a different ecosystem than what we currently have.' (Introduction 67)