AustLit

'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)

'Australian writer Frederic Manning wrote what many considered to be the best narrative of the Great War. For Ernest Hemingway, The Middle Parts of Fortune was the ‘finest and noblest book of men in war’, period. It’s a bold and arresting claim that calls for a quick look, if not a deeper dive, into Manning’s enigmatic life and work. This is particularly pertinent in light of the centenary of the Armistice this month.' (Introduction)

'‘straya’, a bastardised version of ‘Australia’, is the title and the first and largest section of Paul Summers’ latest collection. While the term evokes Afferbeck Lauder’s ‘strine’, a droll representation of Australian language, there is little humour in Summers’ straya. The first poem in the collection, ‘obligato’, suggests an obligation on the reader to take notice. As this musical term indicates, that which follows should not be omitted.' (Introduction)

'Dominique Hecq’s Hush: A Fugue examines the death of a child from a mother’s perspective and the harrowing aftermath of such an inexplicable event. In this autobiographical work, Hecq finds language for a profound loss, one that almost defies articulation.' (Introduction)

'Magdalena Ball’s Unmaking Atoms, her second full-length collection, is a prodigious and often heart-wrenching array of poems, speaking to themes of loss and grief. In the ninety-two, generally short pieces, Ball projects an astounding breadth of knowledge, particularly in science, and mines this in unique and skillful ways.' (Introduction)