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'The poems in Domestic Interior draw together varieties of suburban experience and imagination, charting places that are vibrant, plangent and comical. Award-winning poet and essayist Fiona Wright shows her acute concern for spaces general and particular, showing the small details that build our everyday worlds via story, memory and experience. In her poems these details hold their thrall through the moments of charged emotional extremity we encounter across our lives, whether through dream or desire, illness or struggle. Wright traverses family and its rituals, the spaces of love and friendship, the sites of everyday experience: houses, roadways, clinics, shopping centres. These works are mostly set in Sydney, in the inner suburbs where Wright now lives and in the south-western suburbs where she grew up. Domestic Interior captures these sites as the locations of love as well as sadness, of adversity as well as succour and strength.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Julia Clark Reviews Domestic Interior
2019
single work
poetry
— Appears in: Rabbit , no. 27 2019; (p. 130-133)
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry 'Fiona Wright's second collection of poetry sinks into a well-worn armchair, retraces sidewalks warped by regular routing, and reconnects your favourite sensations with the moment you first felt them.' (From introduction) -
Review The Sorrow in Our Marrow, Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Foam:e , March no. 16 2019;
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry -
Alice Allan Reviews Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , August 2018;
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry -
[Review] Domestic Interior
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 78 no. 2 2018; (p. 191-196)
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry -
Confessional Intensity
2018
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 401 2018; (p. 40-41)'The classic lyric preoccupation with interiority, and how internal life touches and changes the outside world, finds expression in two recent collections of poetry: Fiona Wright’s Domestic Interior and Carolyn Abbs’s The Tiny Museums. In both collections, the speakers draw the shapes of their internal furniture, while building monuments to the intimate scenes and common spaces that define them.' (Introduction)
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[Review] Domestic Interior
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 25 November- 1 December no. 184 2017;
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry'It is hard to read Fiona Wright’s new collection of poems, Domestic Interior, without her award-winning and much-publicised essay collection, Small Acts of Disappearance, in mind. That book dealt with Wright’s eating disorder and Domestic Interior notably abounds in references to food. Food appears in similes: “Older sisters were round and brown / as hard-boiled eggs” (in the poem “Commute”); “my hands grow thick and lumpy / as air-cured salami” (in “Surely”). Food is also in titles – “Sweet Potato”, “Pudding” – and in allusions to cafeterias and bakeries. And there are poems in the form of charms, such as “Charm Against Casual Cruelty”, which lists various ingredients, precisely measured: “a small green chilli, an eggshell / a peanut, a wheat husk”. Indeed, all the poems in this book are skilfully measured and disciplined.' (Introduction)
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Review The Sorrow in Our Marrow, Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Foam:e , March no. 16 2019;
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry -
[Review] Domestic Interior
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 78 no. 2 2018; (p. 191-196)
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry -
Julia Clark Reviews Domestic Interior
2019
single work
poetry
— Appears in: Rabbit , no. 27 2019; (p. 130-133)
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry 'Fiona Wright's second collection of poetry sinks into a well-worn armchair, retraces sidewalks warped by regular routing, and reconnects your favourite sensations with the moment you first felt them.' (From introduction) -
Alice Allan Reviews Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , August 2018;
— Review of Domestic Interior 2017 selected work poetry -
Fruitful Playgrounds
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , November 2017;'Three new poetry collections, three Australian women poets: Present by Elizabeth Allen (Vagabond), Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright (Giramondo) and Passage by Kate Middleton (Giramondo). All three women are award-winning authors, and each has won a major prize for their previous volumes: Allen won the 2012 FAW Anne Elder Award for Body Language, Wright won the 2012 Dame Mary Gilmore Award for Knuckled, and Middleton’s Fire Season was awarded the 2009 WA Premier’s Literary Awards for Poetry. All live in Sydney. These are easy things to report, biographical facts. What is perhaps less known is that each of these poets is a generous spirit and supportive presence in the world of poetry and writing in Australia, as editors, associate publishers, event organisers, colleagues, mentors and poetry champions. I have witnessed this generosity not only from afar but first-hand, at readings, launches, and even through unexpected encounters in cafes; it’s the only thing that would make me consider moving to Sydney. So I emphasise this to begin with, because I think it is important to recognise their contributions in this regard too, and to convey the respect that I have for all three authors not only as poets, but as literary community gems.' (Introduction)
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Confessional Intensity
2018
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 401 2018; (p. 40-41)'The classic lyric preoccupation with interiority, and how internal life touches and changes the outside world, finds expression in two recent collections of poetry: Fiona Wright’s Domestic Interior and Carolyn Abbs’s The Tiny Museums. In both collections, the speakers draw the shapes of their internal furniture, while building monuments to the intimate scenes and common spaces that define them.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2018 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Poetry