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'This is an alive, refreshing and, quite literally, elemental book of water and skin, muscle and fire. Rachael Mead’s poems are immediate and grounded whilst entwined with fragility and struggle. They don’t shy from the difficulties and sadness as well as joy in human kinship. Along the way Mead offers us a clear-eyed self-consciousness of the human within the larger places of the earth, in this case places such as Antarctica, Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, Ikara–Flinders Ranges. The book offers us an embodied sense of secular ritual in its attentiveness and its use of form – lists, lyric iterations, admonitions - as the poet both argues and confides with herself and us, about the wild pleasures of earth’s physical and emotional topographies, and of our responsibilities within all this. A powerful and invigorating book of journeys well worth taking.
'JILL JONES'
Notes
-
Dedication: For Andrew,
Des & Furious
who make coming home the best part of being away.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Daniela Brozek Cordier Reviews The Flaw in the Pattern by Rachael Mead
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , February 2019;
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry -
Mary Cresswell Reviews The Flaw in the Pattern
2019
single work
poetry
— Appears in: Rabbit , no. 27 2019; (p. 134-137)
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry 'The poems in this well-constructed show Mead on a series of adventures, ranging in space from Rarotonga to the Antarctic. She is constantly on the move, indulging a quiet, insistent sense of curiosity that engages with the natural world without colonising it. These are wonderful - poems of place and personality, feeling as though they fell on the page with no effort at all. Reading them is like cruising through a day where everything goes right.' (Introduction) -
Those Flourishing Boundaries
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , October vol. 22 no. 2 2018;
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry'Rachael Mead’s new poetry collection The Flaw in the Pattern continues her important work of watching and speaking through the focal point of the self in the world – in particular, the natural world of place and light and senses and the tracking of our human movement through it. This is the work of a highly skilled and perceptive poet taking charge of her craft: separately these poems offer a range of engaging and challenging windows onto human experience; together they provide a fast-flowing meditation not only on a life in process but the reflective and shaping business of poetry itself. Highly ommended in the Dorothy Hewitt Award for an unpublished manuscript, this collection is now part of UWAP’s ever-expanding poetry series.' (Introduction)
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Review Short: Rachael Mead’s The Flaw in the Pattern and Philip Nielsen’s Wildlife of Berlin
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , August no. 87 2018;
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry ; Wildlife of Berlin 2018 selected work poetry'Holding each of these books is a pleasure. Their two-tone covers have different but complementary botanical design motifs while the master design elements of the UWAP Poetry series, pushing on 23 titles, of which they are part gives them a uniform appearance. They are a credit to Terri-ann White and her team at UWAP in Perth. The miserably small print runs for volumes of poetry often lead to scrimping and saving on design and production, but here at least design costs have been defrayed over the entire series and it pays off in the look of the finished product.' (Introduction)
-
Review Short: Rachael Mead’s The Flaw in the Pattern and Philip Nielsen’s Wildlife of Berlin
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , August no. 87 2018;
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry ; Wildlife of Berlin 2018 selected work poetry'Holding each of these books is a pleasure. Their two-tone covers have different but complementary botanical design motifs while the master design elements of the UWAP Poetry series, pushing on 23 titles, of which they are part gives them a uniform appearance. They are a credit to Terri-ann White and her team at UWAP in Perth. The miserably small print runs for volumes of poetry often lead to scrimping and saving on design and production, but here at least design costs have been defrayed over the entire series and it pays off in the look of the finished product.' (Introduction)
-
Those Flourishing Boundaries
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , October vol. 22 no. 2 2018;
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry'Rachael Mead’s new poetry collection The Flaw in the Pattern continues her important work of watching and speaking through the focal point of the self in the world – in particular, the natural world of place and light and senses and the tracking of our human movement through it. This is the work of a highly skilled and perceptive poet taking charge of her craft: separately these poems offer a range of engaging and challenging windows onto human experience; together they provide a fast-flowing meditation not only on a life in process but the reflective and shaping business of poetry itself. Highly ommended in the Dorothy Hewitt Award for an unpublished manuscript, this collection is now part of UWAP’s ever-expanding poetry series.' (Introduction)
-
Mary Cresswell Reviews The Flaw in the Pattern
2019
single work
poetry
— Appears in: Rabbit , no. 27 2019; (p. 134-137)
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry 'The poems in this well-constructed show Mead on a series of adventures, ranging in space from Rarotonga to the Antarctic. She is constantly on the move, indulging a quiet, insistent sense of curiosity that engages with the natural world without colonising it. These are wonderful - poems of place and personality, feeling as though they fell on the page with no effort at all. Reading them is like cruising through a day where everything goes right.' (Introduction) -
Daniela Brozek Cordier Reviews The Flaw in the Pattern by Rachael Mead
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , February 2019;
— Review of The Flaw in the Pattern 2018 selected work poetry