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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Using chemistry as an indexing trope, Jordie Albiston tabulates the human predicament of love: its foundations and fundamentals; its configuration of emotions; its recurring properties; and its inherent assumption of many as yet unknown elements to occur. These poems range across space and time, all the while adhering to the formal constraints of atomic theory. The states and structures of being are scrutinised according to love's capacity for passion and fissure, blessing and debt, and a compound body of two is progressively mapped onto the page.
'This remarkable collection sees Albiston's longstanding conversation with mathematics and poetic form advance into the realm of science. With characteristic invention, orchestration and play, she discovers and describes the universal vastness and everyday physics of love.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Notes
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Epigraph: The magnitude of the atomic weight determines the character of the element, just as the magnitude of the molecule determines the character of a compound body. —Dmitri Mendeleev
The man of science is nothing if not a poet gone wrong. —George Meredith
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Mastery of Immersion and Advocacy in Jordie Albiston’s Poetry by Angela Costi
2021
single work
essay
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , March no. 31 2021;'From March to November 2020, the Melbourne populace was restricted, curfewed and in ‘lockdown’ due to COVID19, bringing with it a slow-down, a chance to engage deeply with what nourishes. This was a time when I hunkered down with a breadth of poetry collections engaging with themes of isolation, exile and crises. I gravitated to collections of poems that built on an issue, immersing themselves in one world and all of its nuances. This is the mastery of award-winning poet and scholar, Dr Jordie Albiston. She applies outstanding rigour to research and content, as much as she does to form and metre. During the many months of solitary neighbourhood walks, mandatory masks and global crises spreading through airwaves, Albiston’s poems created reflective spaces on how history is only separated by time, and ‘love’ must be activated on a fundamental level.' (Introduction)
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What I’m Reading
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020; -
'A Universal Hum' : Three New Poetry Collections
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 422 2020; (p. 53-54)
— Review of God is Waiting in the World’s Yard 2019 selected work poetry ; Element : The Atomic Weight and Radius of Love 2020 selected work poetry ; Family Trees 2020 selected work poetry'If I were to make gauche generalisations about the poetics of MTC Cronin, Jordie Albiston, and Michael Farrell, I might respectively write conceptual, technical, and experimental. But these established poets – each in their fifties, highly regarded – display fluency with all these descriptors, especially in their latest books.' (Introduction)
-
'A Universal Hum' : Three New Poetry Collections
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 422 2020; (p. 53-54)
— Review of God is Waiting in the World’s Yard 2019 selected work poetry ; Element : The Atomic Weight and Radius of Love 2020 selected work poetry ; Family Trees 2020 selected work poetry'If I were to make gauche generalisations about the poetics of MTC Cronin, Jordie Albiston, and Michael Farrell, I might respectively write conceptual, technical, and experimental. But these established poets – each in their fifties, highly regarded – display fluency with all these descriptors, especially in their latest books.' (Introduction)
-
What I’m Reading
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020; -
The Mastery of Immersion and Advocacy in Jordie Albiston’s Poetry by Angela Costi
2021
single work
essay
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , March no. 31 2021;'From March to November 2020, the Melbourne populace was restricted, curfewed and in ‘lockdown’ due to COVID19, bringing with it a slow-down, a chance to engage deeply with what nourishes. This was a time when I hunkered down with a breadth of poetry collections engaging with themes of isolation, exile and crises. I gravitated to collections of poems that built on an issue, immersing themselves in one world and all of its nuances. This is the mastery of award-winning poet and scholar, Dr Jordie Albiston. She applies outstanding rigour to research and content, as much as she does to form and metre. During the many months of solitary neighbourhood walks, mandatory masks and global crises spreading through airwaves, Albiston’s poems created reflective spaces on how history is only separated by time, and ‘love’ must be activated on a fundamental level.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2021 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
- 2020 shortlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
