AustLit

'The fifty-eight sonnets comprising the sequence Bull Days, Tina Giannoukos’s second poetry collection, are the work of a highly accomplished practitioner, and indeed this poet has worked in the sonnet form before, with the sequence “Abelard”.' (Introduction)

'There is a prevalent myth among academic poets that there is an ‘official verse culture’ in Australia. It could also go by the name of ‘conventional verse culture’ or ‘state verse culture’. The most cited gatekeeper for official verse culture is often Geoff Page (see Bonny Cassidy’s ‘Wild Ecology of Thought’ in Australian Poetry Journal) though one would suggest that others matter as well. And yet, official verse culture is hard to pin down when it comes both to publications and influence. The straw man of official verse culture in Australia is precisely that when we compare it transnationally. The presence of diversity in the Australian Book Review and the importance of Corditewould only seem to support this.'  (Introduction)

'I became aware of Alison Whittaker’s first poetry collection, Lemons in the Chicken Wire, during the 2016 Queensland Poetry Festival. At the panel I attended, Whittaker wasn’t reading from her book but instead (like the other poets on the panel, Justin Clemens, Stuart Cooke and Natalie Harkin) she was presenting a poetic response to Dorothea Mackellar’s “My Country”.'  (Introduction)

'The Silences, a two hander from Amanda Anastasi and Robbie Coburn, is one of the hits of the year for me. Although slender, coming in at just 41 pages, the poems have a power and coherence that has resulted from keeping their remit tightly focussed. Instead of a dos-si-dos format where each of the poets have a designated space within the book and their own ‘front’ cover, the poems in The Silences are interleaved as a conversation between the poets. The order, sometimes a single poem from one author followed by a set of poems from the other, is a well-structured scheme that has obviously been dictated by the flow of the poems rather than an artificially introduced this-then-that/ you-then-me idea.'  (Introduction)

'A crop of new titles came in to foam:e from UWA Publishing just before we went to press. The timing was difficult for a full review but Quinn Eades collection, Rallying, is exceptional. Such aware and embodied writing demands a response. As a reader I was entranced, the book is a page-turner in the best sense of that description. The strength of its narrative making me want to know what happens next.'  (Introduction)