AustLit

'Since 1983, David Brooks has produced five collections of poetry: 'The Cold Front, Walking to Point Clear, Urban Elegies, The Balcony and Open House', the last four published between 2005 and 2015. All of David Brooks's poetry collections show a remarkable facility with the demands of free verse, his preferred mode. There are only a very small handful of poems which use more formal structures. Immediately apparent is his mastery of the line. Because there are no hard and fast rules as to where to break a free verse line, its use can be problematic, especially if the style is conversational and the language leans towards plainness, then a prose-like laxness can be the result, but Brooks avoids all these pitfalls. Brooks is generally a conversational poet, his poems engage the reader through personal observations, revelations and epiphanic disclosures. His ability to pace the poems, and to use his free verse lines to distribute modulations of voice and tone, cadence and meaning keeps his work kinetic, buoyant and constantly surprising.' (Publication abstract)