AustLit

'Fish Work brings the great barrier reef into poetic focus, exploring not just the fish that occupy the reefs but that vast variety of life-forms – including human – that make the reef a uniquely diverse environment. Developed over three years of field-work, during which time the poet lived and worked alongside marine researchers, Fish Work asks us to reconsider what it means to live with other beings, human and extra-than-human.

'Blending the language of scientific research with the language of popular culture and her familiar conversational register, Fish Work is unlike any other book of poetry currently available in Australia.

'This collection represents the first dedicated poetic investigation into the Great Barrier Reef in a time a climate change, paying particular attention to the far northern Great Barrier Reef, specifically Lizard Island Research Station where the poet spent several months over several years undergoing fieldwork with the scientific researchers in residence.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'It was coming to the end of my time in America. PhD applications still ongoing, I didn't know where I was going but the movers were booked, the cars and furniture in the process of being sold. It was back to that space of deciding what is necessary and what is easy to replace. I had done a lot, seen a lot, been twenty-something across twenty-something states, tried out their names in my mouth. I liked the South, the long vowels and how the rusting history on every street hung low, like a flag of a pole.' (Introduction)

'In her debut collection, award-winning talent Caitlin Maling explores coming of age in contemporary Australia. Writing from Perth, Houston and Cambridge, Maling’s early years to adulthood are told through the lens of the Australian landscape. For young settler Australians this is a place that both defines and undermines identity. A place that claims but can’t be claimed in return. Restlessly questioning and slipping between promise and possibility, Maling’s Australia is richly evoked in narratives of raw power and feeling.' (Publication summary)