AustLit

'It has to be said, I’ve never reviewed a poetry collection before. So I’m doing this as I see fit and not according to how a review is meant to be done. I don’t offer myself up as an expert, but as a reader who has been unimaginably moved by this work. Every poem took my breath away. If I could cite every poem from this collection in this ‘review’, I would.' (Introduction)

'It was with trepidation and some excitement that I approached a reading of Family Trees, the most recent collection of poetry by Australian poet Michael Farrell, regarded as one of our leading contemporary experimental poets.' (Introduction)

'There’s no one quite like Robyn Rowland in Australian poetry. For a start, she rarely seems to be here, in Australia. For years, Rowland has threaded a life between Ireland and Australia, the country of her heritage and her birth country. Her poetry has always been marked by the tension inherent in this dual sense of identity, but these two books take it further, adding a passionate engagement with Turkey to the mix. Australia makes cameo appearances in these books, but it’s never the focus. As she says, adopting the voice of her great grandmother: ‘. . . I’m restless./I want to keep moving. Maybe it’s in the blood, roaming.’ (‘Arriving Sydney Annie Harding Lambert, 1889).' (Introduction)

'Every day, women face a barrage of insults to our humanity through the ways we are spoken to in private and through public discourse. Through borrowed words Listen, bitch cleverly shows us how this discourse is played out.' (Introduction)

'Dodo was a small litereary magazine that was published out of Sydney from 1976 to 1979. Michael Witts, who was one of the editors, looks back at the history of the journal.' (Introduction)

'Kerri Shying is an Australian poet of Chinese and Wiradjuri heritage whose first collection, sing out when you want me, is one of the bilingual editions in the Pocket Poets Series by Flying Island Books. While physically small (it can literally fit in your pocket), the collection runs to 101 pages with 30 poems and matching Chinese translations by Karen Kun. These poems reflect the lived experience and as Shying said in an interview with Writing NSW, “it completely came out of my experience as a mixed-race woman and an insider/outsider in all kinds of ways.” The collection plays this out in city, rural and suburban settings and speaks powerfully of both private and public hurts.' (Introduction)

'Who better to explore the notion of ‘home’ than a wanderer? Nathanael O’Reilly has travelled on five continents; he’s originally from Victoria, now settled in Texas, and in-between spent time in England, Ireland, Germany and the Ukraine. (Un)belonging is his sixth collection, and followers of his work might be familiar with particular themes of interest for O’Reilly, even based on the book titles alone: Preparations for Departure, Distance, and Symptoms of Homesickness. All puns intended, he is on familiar territory writing about unfamiliar territory.' (Introduction)