AustLit

'I invited you to lean into this DOMESTIC sphere in all its homely undoing; to rupture the masquerading shape of cosy bliss; to plant seeds and haunt with your words; to unsettle and shape what survival looks and feels like – and you did. You lured me into other-worlds with your heart-on-sleeve, body-on-the-line words; a DOMESTIC fever-immersion that broke my heart and made me rage, laugh out-loud, question and delve deeper when I needed to know you more. You kept me awake. You got under my skin. None of it was easy.' (Natalie Harkin, Editorial Introduction)

'A callout for a poetry of consciousness ‘that enacts and is responsible for what it considers’, that has been written with an awareness of ‘crises, brinks and redress’, was always going to bring some powerful and confronting work. We also hoped for poetry with contiguous capacity for social justice, community awareness and social and emotional wellbeing, and we feel that we have been able to select and collate such poems here. There are many different causes, convictions and concerns addressed in these poems, but the act of showing concern and suggesting a wish for positive change – for asserting a sense of justice and seeking that justice – is inherent in different ways in most if not all of the poems in this issue.' (John Kinsella and Jeanine Leane, Editorial introduction)