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'The poems in Bull Days grapple with desire, ethics and compassion. From the first, the speaker confronts the challenges of today's world. Language becomes the ground of the undoing of a relationship that we are not certain has begun. Perhaps it may yet emerge out of the speaker's contemplation. Multi-voiced, this sequence of fifty-eight sonnets explores the contemporary possibilities of the form.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Tongue of Love Tastes Tough in These Bull Days
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Foam:e , March no. 14 2017;'The fifty-eight sonnets comprising the sequence Bull Days, Tina Giannoukos’s second poetry collection, are the work of a highly accomplished practitioner, and indeed this poet has worked in the sonnet form before, with the sequence “Abelard”.' (Introduction)
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Mary Cresswell Reviews Bull Days by Tina Giannoukos
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain : An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics , June vol. 4 no. 1.1 2017;
— Review of Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry -
Geoff Page Reviews Bull Days by Tina Giannoukos
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , April no. 20 2017;
— Review of Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry 'Tina Giannoukos’s first book, In a Bigger City (Five Islands Press 2005), was a highly evocative and rather unsparing portrait of Melbourne at the time. The observations were close and clear-eyed, the tone generally colloquial. There was also a considerable social range in the poems though many of the protagonists seemed to be somewhat down on their luck.' (Introduction) -
Review : Bull Days
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , 23 February 2017;
— Review of Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry -
Review Short : Tina Giannoukos’s Bull Days
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 57 2017; 'The first poem of Tina Giannoukos’s second collection ends with the line, ‘In space I hold the horn of plenty’. This reference to the classical symbol of abundance foreshadows the poetic landscape that follows in Bull Days, a volume teeming with external allusion and internal reverberation. Giannoukos’s primary subject is a romantic/erotic love relationship, which is dissected in a series of 58 disparately patterned sonnets. In early incarnations the sonnet form was, of course, commonly applied to the theme of love, and here Giannoukos follows tradition, imbuing much of the work with a vivid sense of lyrical presence. This presence is maintained through constantly fluctuating tonal effects – melancholic, vexed, ironic, mournful are but a few – causing the lyrical ‘I’ (who addresses an unnamed ‘you’) to declare late in the volume: ‘These shifts in mood are impossible to endure’. But endure it does, through ‘the long hour of the love poem’ (as sonnet XXXVIII puts it) which comprises Bull Days. For it is feasible to conceive of this sequence as one long poem: while its pieces record diverse and seemingly discrete events, it constructs, overall, an undulating narrative shape.' (Introduction)
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Review : Australian Poetry
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 5-6 November 2016; (p. 21)
— Review of Headwaters 2016 selected work poetry ; Gods and Uncles 2015 selected work poetry ; Who Said What, Exactly 2016 selected work poetry ; Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry -
A Labyrinth of Poetry
2016
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , October vol. 20 no. 2 2016;
— Review of Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry -
Review : Bull Days
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: Neos Kosmos , 23 February 2017;
— Review of Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry -
Geoff Page Reviews Bull Days by Tina Giannoukos
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Mascara Literary Review , April no. 20 2017;
— Review of Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry 'Tina Giannoukos’s first book, In a Bigger City (Five Islands Press 2005), was a highly evocative and rather unsparing portrait of Melbourne at the time. The observations were close and clear-eyed, the tone generally colloquial. There was also a considerable social range in the poems though many of the protagonists seemed to be somewhat down on their luck.' (Introduction) -
Mary Cresswell Reviews Bull Days by Tina Giannoukos
2017
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain : An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics , June vol. 4 no. 1.1 2017;
— Review of Bull Days 2016 selected work poetry -
“All You Need Is... ” : A Review of Tina Giannoukos’s Bull Days
2016
single work
review
essay
— Appears in: Philament , December no. 22 2016; (p. 141-149) 'The modern sonnet is a precarious poetic form. It is best recognised by its number of lines— twelve to fourteen—and its sense of being written “to” a person, animal, natural place, or even an abstract idea. It may or may not be conversational. It may or may not rhyme. It might be an argument, a dedication, or even an individual’s expression of intimacy. It either has its Petrachan-style volta pulled up around its midsection, or, more likely, offers a Shakespearean volta—its last couplet comprising a sting in its tail. Upon reading a modern sonnet, you might have to read it back over to check it is not merely a short poem, and then wonder how exactly you were able to tell the difference.' (Introduction) -
“Echoes, Hauntings and Play” : Lucy Wilks Reviews ‘Bull Days’ by Tina Giannoukos
2016
single work
review
essay
— Appears in: Rochford Street Review , October – December no. 20 2016; 'In her second collection of poetry, Bull Days, Tina Giannoukos elaborates on the dyad of the lover and the beloved, a relationship she guides through a cycle of fifty-eight sonnets, each more than equal to the exigencies of the form. Giannoukos nuances both the mutability and the steadfastness of love, its vows and caprices buoyed on thematic waves that break afresh in contrapuntal procession. This is a work of great finesse and accomplishment, daring in its navigation of the inconceivable, and plaintive at times with the spectre of a love welcomed into the life of the word at the very moment of the lover’s bereavement. The poems move with grace and proportion, euphoniously lamenting and celebrating this capacious and sometimes wraith-like affection, its lineaments ranging from the querulous and wearisome to the tender and marvellous. The poet salutes, resonates within, and invigorates a lyric tradition whose history informs her transfigurations, all the while staying open to a more contemporary idiom, the fusion handled with poise and a supple, writerly discipline.' (Introduction) -
Review Short : Tina Giannoukos’s Bull Days
2017
single work
essay
review
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 February no. 57 2017; 'The first poem of Tina Giannoukos’s second collection ends with the line, ‘In space I hold the horn of plenty’. This reference to the classical symbol of abundance foreshadows the poetic landscape that follows in Bull Days, a volume teeming with external allusion and internal reverberation. Giannoukos’s primary subject is a romantic/erotic love relationship, which is dissected in a series of 58 disparately patterned sonnets. In early incarnations the sonnet form was, of course, commonly applied to the theme of love, and here Giannoukos follows tradition, imbuing much of the work with a vivid sense of lyrical presence. This presence is maintained through constantly fluctuating tonal effects – melancholic, vexed, ironic, mournful are but a few – causing the lyrical ‘I’ (who addresses an unnamed ‘you’) to declare late in the volume: ‘These shifts in mood are impossible to endure’. But endure it does, through ‘the long hour of the love poem’ (as sonnet XXXVIII puts it) which comprises Bull Days. For it is feasible to conceive of this sequence as one long poem: while its pieces record diverse and seemingly discrete events, it constructs, overall, an undulating narrative shape.' (Introduction) -
The Tongue of Love Tastes Tough in These Bull Days
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Foam:e , March no. 14 2017;'The fifty-eight sonnets comprising the sequence Bull Days, Tina Giannoukos’s second poetry collection, are the work of a highly accomplished practitioner, and indeed this poet has worked in the sonnet form before, with the sequence “Abelard”.' (Introduction)
Awards
- 2017 longlisted ASAL Awards — ALS Gold Medal
- 2017 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — The C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry