AustLit

'Memory Book: Portraits of Older Australians in Poetry and Watercolours shares and celebrates the fascinating life stories of everyday Australians.

'Based on one-on-one interviews with forty-five participants, the fifteen poets involved in this project have shaped poems that provide unique and lasting remembrances of the experiences, memories and reflections of members of our older generations.

'Some poems focus on a significant moment, while others provide a wider life narrative. The poems capture important stories of travel and work, family and milestones, achievements and struggles; they provide humble advice to younger generations, learned through circumstance, curiosity, or necessity.

'The poems are paired with watercolour portraits by artist Sierra McManus.' (Publication summary)

'At the age of twenty-four, Dimity Ware received a kidney transplant. Her doctors told her she could never have children and would probably die in her thirties. In response, she announced her lesbianism, left her husband, and gave birth to a son.

'Ianto Ware revisits his childhood in suburban Adelaide, where his mother — single parent, lesbian feminist, and ardent socialist — waged a four-decade war on her conservative neighbourhood, primarily through the medium of gardening.

'Blending the loving wisdom of Ray Gaita, the emotional honesty of Jeanette Winterson, and the humour of Gerald Durrell, this is part family memoir, part history of working class life, and part homage to suburban eccentricity.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Something is terribly wrong. The news lurches between horror show and parody. Aeroplanes disappear from radar screens. The Holocene obliterates itself.

'Hot Take confronts opinion culture in the attention economy, love in the age of Tinder, politics in the age of Brexit and Trump. It will stay with you long after the think pieces are forgotten.'  (Publication abstract)

 'This book continues Brendan Ryan's exploration of place and belonging that resonate in country towns. From the lives of farmers, abattoir workers, and dog walkers to the history of Aboriginal dispossession; from a tour of the communities of the Mt Noorat Football League in Victoria's isolated Western District to moments of wonder on back country roads celebrated with gentle irony. Here is a view of the country that is both contemporary and wry. Lyrical and rich in narrative power, this is a collection that dismantles the idealised rural pastoral with an empathetic and incisive voice.' (Publication summary)

'Australia has a rich history of feminist poetry but there is no one kind of feminist voice.

'Each of the seventy new poems commissioned for this anthology cuts its own path through language. Together, their politics are restless, inextricably tied to the now.' (Publication summary)

'In 2012 poet and writer Joel Deane suffered a stroke. Suddenly he was a poet without language. Year of the Wasp tracks Deane’s journey to rediscover his poetic voice.

From these deeply personal origins Deane’s third poetry collection rises to confront the realities of politics and culture, language and love in contemporary Australia. It is a journey of poetic transfiguration that produces a work of unrivalled power, emotional intensity, and insight.' (Publication summary)

'Shy and bespectacled Russell Mockridge was the black sheep of Australian cycling and also its greatest all-round champion. He dominated both the track and road - at the time of his death he was the reigning national sprint, pursuit, and road race champion. His race record in the legendary Melbourne to Warrnambool stood for nearly twenty-five years.

'At the 1952 Olympics he won two gold medals in one afternoon. His first forays into European racing, where he won the Paris Grand Prix and Six-Day event and completed both Paris-Roubaix (finishing behind Fausto Coppi and Jacques Anquetil) and the brutal 1955 Tour de France, hinted at even greater glory.

'In May 1958 Russell Mockridge started to write this book, the story of his life as a racing cyclist. On September 13, 1958, while competing in a road race on the outskirts of Melbourne, he was killed. Intelligent, candid, and inspirational, My World On Wheels is the forgotten story of Australia's finest cyclist ever.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Small Town Soundtrack continues Brendan Ryan's exploration of place and belonging that resonate in country towns.

'From the lives of farmers, abattoir workers, and dog walkers to the history of aboriginal dispossession; from a tour of the communities of the Mt Noorat Football League in Victoria's isolated Western District to moments of wonder on back country roads celebrated with gentle irony. Here is a view of the country that is both contemporary and wry.

'Lyrical and rich in narrative power Small Town Soundtrack dismantles the idealized rural pastoral with an empathetic and incisive voice.' (Publication summary)

Women knit at the foot of the guillotine. Hundreds of blackbirds tumble suddenly from the sky. Red Riding Hood's grandmother speaks from the belly of the wolf. Santa Lucia offers you her eyes on a platter. These poems present a panorama, by turns historical, mythical, and modern, of horrors and absurdities both familiar and obscure.

''Perhaps not fox nor axe, but something gives us chase' - and the only thing more difficult than bearing witness is turning away.' (Publication summary)

'In his latest collection, Liam Ferney focuses on the deep contradictions at the heart of modern life. Content is a hand grenade tossed into the middle of polite society.

'Ferney uses the argot of politics and the internet to tackle religion, war, love and late capitalism. This is fast paced poetry that is explosive, critical, and engaged.' (Publication summary)

'Little is known about the French Tasmanian colony of la Ville de Baudin. Less still about its most mysterious colonist, Henri Maurice Claudet.

'For the first time, The Diemenois presents the correct and true account of the sensational escape, seclusion, and cruel demise of one of history's most infamous men. A tale of intrigue, blackmail, conspiracy, and murder.

'In this brilliant stretch of the imagination, JW Clennett brings an alternative history of the early Australian colony to life as a stunning new graphic novel.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Devious Intimacy combines a sly, playful wit with a melancholic tenderness to navigate the complex terrain of difficult feelings. Vickery's poems move effortlessly between the private world of love and sexuality to wider forms of connection, teasing out how past histories and literature underscore contemporary human bonds and how we imagine ourselves in light of neighbours, nationhood, and the environment.' (Publication summary)

'In a small Riverina township in the 1950s, an unmarried white woman entered hospital to give birth. Her baby was Aboriginal; the father's identity was unknown. The young mother checked herself out as soon as she could, leaving her newborn daughter behind.

'For Linda Burney, life began tough in the tiny NSW township of Whitton. Her birth had been a scandal and caused her to be mocked and reviled by some — yet she was also loved by the elderly relatives who took her in and quickly won friends and admiration.

'From these humble beginnings in country NSW, Linda grew to become a successful teacher, then a leader in a vital community organization, an inspiring political leader, Director General of a state department, and was an outstandingly successful minister in NSW government while her party crumbled around her.

'But while her professional life flourished, her personal world imploded, a victim of prolonged domestic violence, left unsupported to bring-up two children. Finally, the tragic illness and death of the man she has called 'the love of my life' and the debilitating illness of a child have not diminished her capacity for friendship, loyalty, and generosity.

'This is the story of a woman who has overcome extraordinary adversity to become a great leader in the Australian community, described by the author as 'the most remarkable woman I've ever met'. ' (Publication summary)

'A superbly crafted undertaking that investigates issues of subjectivity, objectivity and place, and carries a fascinating documentary quality.' — John Kinsella

'Land Before Lines traverses the literary and photographic topography of the contemporary Victorian poetry scene.

'Comprised of sixty-eight unique photographic portraits of contemporary Victorian poets, and a revealing suite of poems written by each poet in response to their image, the project provides original and intimate insight into notions as disparate as self-representation, community, and the character of 'the poet.'

'Taken over an 18-month period by Nicholas Walton-Healey, Land Before Lines bring to life Victoria's diverse poetry community, from young, emerging writers to the some of the most well-known poets in the state, and reflect a unique insight into the work of the subjects.' (Publication summary)

'Personal Weather reveals, through image and narrative, the intimate worlds of diverse real and fictitious characters. Peter Bakowski condenses biography, the history of art and literature, crime fiction, and traveller's tales into a unique vision, glimpsed at the junction of personal and public life.' (Publication summary)

Modelled on structures of classical epics such as Homer's Iliad, Virgil's Aeneid and Milton's Paradise Lost, yet set in the contemporary world of globalisation, The Mundiad celebrates the detritus of everyday life - Kylie Minogue, pornography, new ageism, genetic engineering, IVF, screen culture, among many others.

Source: Black Inc. website, http://www.blackincbooks.com/blinc/# (Sighted 6/10/04)

'In her second major collection, Claire Gaskin explores the human condition, disengaging language from our assumptions in order to reassemble an emotional and intellectual integrity. In the best surrealist tradition, Paperweight plays the game of exquisite corpse - dismantling language to reveal how it imprisons experience within a system. Conversely, Gaskin then shows how imagery can liberate in moments of pure surprise and how the constraints of form such as the villanelle and the pantoum can force invention. Spare yet expressive, playful yet wise, Paperweight celebrates the visceral power of poetry and its connection to the body, personal history, and the immergence of the unconscious in us all.' (Publication summary)