AustLit

'We are delighted at the response to Issue 7 – Memoir. It’s our biggest yet with over 500 poems received from near and far: every continent represented, except for Antarctica and South America.

'It’s very clear to us that women poets wanted to write and share poems for this Memoir issue that ‘resonate with the desire or compulsion to revisit, relive, interrogate, reinterpret, record and recreate the past’.

'The provocation is consonant with the times we are living through. Poets used it as an opportunity to look back, to explore many different memories. A compelling trigger for reflection, speculation, reconciliation and closure but for some it led to uncomfortable, disturbing and challenging memories and often raw personal writing.

'It was a great privilege to read the submissions and a very difficult task to narrow down the choices for publication. This is a weighty Issue in every sense. A very diverse collection of eighty poems that ranges from narratives to short lyrics in a variety of forms drawing upon direct experience and the transformative effect of poetry.

'We want to thank sincerely every poet who submitted their poems to Issue 7 of Not Very Quiet.

'We also want to acknowledge the poets who contributed audio recordings of readings of their poems and thank Melinda Smith who contributed a review article of collections by the four Canberra-based Not Very Quiet editors. Finally, we thank guest editor Anne Casey and feature artist Teena McCarthy for their substantial contributions to this issue.' (Moya Pacey and Sandra Renew, The past is all about us and within https://not-very-quiet.com/2020/09/14/the-past-is-all-about-us/)