AustLit

'Felicity Plunkett’s latest collection, A Kinder Sea, renders navigable the ocean of urgent emotions on which a poet floats her many loves and only life. Here, the sea is fluid in its identity – pun intended – as it is at once a sanctuary and a taker of lives, preserving and whittling-away at relics of existence. Sometimes elegiac in nature, these poems are warmly intimate. Yet, in Plunkett’s deft hands, the verse does not succumb to solipsism: she evokes a sense of universal experience as she occasionally samples lines from other writers, including Emily Dickinson, Henry James, Paul Celan, and Ali Smith. The effect is at once fresh and emulatory. The borrowed lines are given new life with Plunkett’s pen – or, to use the words of her poem, “Sound Bridge” (1-2), these are the “same notes in new throats” (2). Plunkett’s poetry offers up prayers, wishes, and promises for the future even as it preserves the past in a way that is less nostalgic or forensic than it is physiological.' (Introduction)

'Ben Adams’ “a synonym for sobriety” is a recent offering from Friendly Street Poets, who have been enlivening the Adelaide poetry scene since 1975, making them Australia’s longest running community open mic, poetry reading, and publishing group.' (Introduction)

'Rebecca Jessen’s debut collection of poetry, Ask Me About the Future, shows this important poet developing an assured voice six years on from the publication of her award-winning verse novel, Gap (2014). Jessen’s is a vital voice in the queersphere. This collection explores the experience of a young gay woman in poignant detail, and there is also a sequence of poems on the birth of her sister’s child which is different in feel: sparser and somehow more organic.' (Introduction)

'L.K. Holt’s fourth full-length collection of poetry, Birth Plan, is impressive. If the reader could somehow dive into a gold mine and swim through the layered seams of potential meaning, then that might come close to describing the rich experience of reading Holt’s poetry. This is challenging writing – most readers will require the Oxford English Dictionary on hand to look up some of the more obscure words used – and Holt makes no effort to cosset or cosy up to the reader. This is true both of her use of a precise and formidably vast vocabulary and of her direct approach to sometimes unsettling themes and content.' (Introduction)