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'Shevaun Cooley was born and raised in the south west of Western Australia, but has been drawn ceaselessly to the landscapes of North Wales, where she lived for a time in her early twenties. The poems are written out of the questions this divided orientation raises – about what constitutes a home, and how we might find our way there. Animals have an ability to home that seems both biological and intuitive. Do we have this compass too? In the poems it is the sudden appearance of wild creatures, the shifting waters of sea or lake or river, the way light falls over the scene, which points to what we are driven to hold, but which ultimately evades us. Other material, from the poet’s own life - including, inevitably, heartbreak - makes its way into the poems as well, since many of these emotions arise from a sense of being unhomed or unsettled. There is also a fine intelligence at work, calling in mythical resonances, the testimony of poets and scientists, and the resources of language, to sharpen the poet’s alertness to her surroundings.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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Dedication: for everyone still trying to make their way home
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Simon Patton Reviews Homing by Shevaun Cooley
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , February 2018;
— Review of Homing 2016 selected work poetry -
Four New Collections and a Question Mark
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 77 no. 1 2018; (p. 194-200) -
Shevaun Cooley : Homing
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , vol. 12 no. 2017; 'At an initial glance, almost everything about Shevaun Cooley’s first book, Homing, suggests the programmatic. It’s so highly organised, from its division into two locations (each introduced by its co-ordinates) to its poem titles (all derived from the poems of R.S Thomas) that it is hard not to expect it to be rationalised as something like “a series of studies in the phenomenon of being at, and getting, home”. The problem with a “series of studies” is that it suggests poems being written to fill out a frame rather than being written because they have to be. It also suggests a project that can be justified in an application for a grant or admission into a Creative Writing degree. And usually the core of the program, the area of interest, is quite specific and thus slightly simplified, perhaps even conceived extra-poetically. It’s a relief to find that Homing is actually a much more difficult book than it looks on the surface. My sense, though it is no more than a reader’s guess, is that the programmatic element arrived at a fairly late stage as a way of giving the book a sense of unity. The poems, taken in themselves, are, in other words, a little more open and resistant to simplification than one might initially think.' (Introduction)
-
Simon Patton Reviews Homing by Shevaun Cooley
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Plumwood Mountain [Online] , February 2018;
— Review of Homing 2016 selected work poetry -
Shevaun Cooley : Homing
2017
single work
essay
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , vol. 12 no. 2017; 'At an initial glance, almost everything about Shevaun Cooley’s first book, Homing, suggests the programmatic. It’s so highly organised, from its division into two locations (each introduced by its co-ordinates) to its poem titles (all derived from the poems of R.S Thomas) that it is hard not to expect it to be rationalised as something like “a series of studies in the phenomenon of being at, and getting, home”. The problem with a “series of studies” is that it suggests poems being written to fill out a frame rather than being written because they have to be. It also suggests a project that can be justified in an application for a grant or admission into a Creative Writing degree. And usually the core of the program, the area of interest, is quite specific and thus slightly simplified, perhaps even conceived extra-poetically. It’s a relief to find that Homing is actually a much more difficult book than it looks on the surface. My sense, though it is no more than a reader’s guess, is that the programmatic element arrived at a fairly late stage as a way of giving the book a sense of unity. The poems, taken in themselves, are, in other words, a little more open and resistant to simplification than one might initially think.' (Introduction) -
Four New Collections and a Question Mark
2018
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 77 no. 1 2018; (p. 194-200)
