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'John Mateer’s previous poetry book Southern Barbarians traced the influence of the Portuguese empire in the Indian Ocean – it was shortlisted for the PM’s Award for Poetry and the NSW and Victorian Premiers’ Literary Awards. Unbelievers, or The Moor takes this exploration one step further, to recover its Arabic and Islamic origins in Al-Andalus, the Moorish state which occupied much of present-day Spain and Portugal from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries. A seat of learning and culture, which combined Muslim, Christian and Jewish influences, it provides a model for Mateer’s own mixed background as a South African Australian, and for his nomadic identity as a poet. The collection is much concerned with influential but invisible histories; with the poem as a moment of connection between languages and cultures, so that it seems already to exist in translation; with doubles and hauntings, friends in far places, and above all, what Mateer calls ‘the irony of Elsewhere’.' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Epigraph:
Half of man is his tongue, and half his heart.
The Poem of Zuhayr, 6th Century AD
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Infidel Poetics : A Review of John Mateer’s ‘Unbelievers’
2015
single work
review
— Appears in: Jacket2 2015;
— Review of Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry -
John Mateer, Unbelievers, or 'The Moor'
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 74 no. 2 2014; (p. 251-257)
— Review of Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry -
Lucy Van Reviews John Mateer
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , August no. 47.0 2014;
— Review of Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry ; Emptiness : Asian Poems 1998-2012 2013 selected work poetry -
Imaginings Connect to the Wider World
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 12-13 July 2014; (p. 21)
— Review of Towns in the Great Desert 2012 selected work poetry ; Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry -
‘Distant and Kindred Analogies’ in Recent Australian Poetry
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 59 no. 1 2014; (p. 144-163)
— Review of Threefer 2013 selected work poetry ; Towns in the Great Desert 2012 selected work poetry ; Hotel Hyperion 2013 selected work poetry ; The Best Australian Poems 2013 2013 selected work poetry ; The Vision of Error : A Sextet of Activist Poems 2013 selected work poetry ; Night Writing 2014 selected work poetry ; Even in the Dark 2013 selected work poetry ; Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry ; Ephemeral Waters 2013 selected work poetry ; New Selected Poems 2013 selected work poetry ; Leaves of Glass 2013 selected work poetry ; Unearthed 2013 selected work poetry ; Goad Omen 2013 selected work poetry
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Dissolution and Reclamation
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , April 2014;
— Review of Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry -
‘Distant and Kindred Analogies’ in Recent Australian Poetry
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 59 no. 1 2014; (p. 144-163)
— Review of Threefer 2013 selected work poetry ; Towns in the Great Desert 2012 selected work poetry ; Hotel Hyperion 2013 selected work poetry ; The Best Australian Poems 2013 2013 selected work poetry ; The Vision of Error : A Sextet of Activist Poems 2013 selected work poetry ; Night Writing 2014 selected work poetry ; Even in the Dark 2013 selected work poetry ; Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry ; Ephemeral Waters 2013 selected work poetry ; New Selected Poems 2013 selected work poetry ; Leaves of Glass 2013 selected work poetry ; Unearthed 2013 selected work poetry ; Goad Omen 2013 selected work poetry -
Imaginings Connect to the Wider World
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 12-13 July 2014; (p. 21)
— Review of Towns in the Great Desert 2012 selected work poetry ; Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry -
Lucy Van Reviews John Mateer
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , August no. 47.0 2014;
— Review of Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry ; Emptiness : Asian Poems 1998-2012 2013 selected work poetry -
John Mateer, Unbelievers, or 'The Moor'
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 74 no. 2 2014; (p. 251-257)
— Review of Unbelievers, or 'The Moor' 2013 selected work poetry