AustLit

'It is hard to read Fiona Wright’s new collection of poems, Domestic Interior, without her award-winning and much-publicised essay collection, Small Acts of Disappearance, in mind. That book dealt with Wright’s eating disorder and Domestic Interior notably abounds in references to food. Food appears in similes: “Older sisters were round and brown / as hard-boiled eggs” (in the poem “Commute”); “my hands grow thick and lumpy / as air-cured salami” (in “Surely”). Food is also in titles – “Sweet Potato”, “Pudding” – and in allusions to cafeterias and bakeries. And there are poems in the form of charms, such as “Charm Against Casual Cruelty”, which lists various ingredients, precisely measured: “a small green chilli, an eggshell / a peanut, a wheat husk”. Indeed, all the poems in this book are skilfully measured and disciplined.' (Introduction)