AustLit

'About three-quarters through Acrobat Music: New & Selected Poems, Jill Jones nudges the reader knowingly in the ribs. ‘Difficult Poem’ proposes a list of possible definitions of what a ‘difficult poem’ might be, or might be assumed to be. Composed of only six lines, and nineteen words anagrammatically rearranged from its title, with an introductory subtitle, ‘(yeah like a’, it’s an ironic riposte to what has come back to Jones, as she told Jen Webb in a 2019 interview, ‘that my poetry is thought to be a bit “difficult”, for some reason I can’t quite figure out. Because it really isn’t difficult.’ Having read Acrobat Music, I wouldn’t disagree with her. And ‘Difficult Poem’ certainly hammers home the rousing, generative riffing of Jones’ approach.'  (Introduction)