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image of person or book cover 6918724280245540533.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon The Simplified World selected work   poetry  
Issue Details: First known date: 2010... 2010 The Simplified World
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Like Petra White’s applauded first collection, her second begins and ends with a fable of the uncanny ordinary. Between is a cornucopia of odes: epistolary, philosophical, elegiac. These poems think through and honour the normal mysteries of fate.

'Her world is large and contemporary, anchored by a young poet’s own memories. White inhabits her poems lightly, using personal experience with wit and without self-pleading. Some of this work shows the shadow of depression: not so much expressing moods as touching on how depression dwells, finding its register so it can speak.

'A number of poems openly engage with notable depressives of literary history, but we don’t need those homages to realise that this poet is a very capacious reader. It is there in her music. Late Lowell and Bishop, along with Harwood, ghost the swift edge in her language. Beyond these, a large tradition of cadences and tropes is absorbed in her fluent free verse lines.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Notes

  • Dedication: For Ellie, Marty, Lili & Alex

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: John Leonard Press , 2010 .
      image of person or book cover 6918724280245540533.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 54p.
      Note/s:
      • Includes Notes (p. 54)
      ISBN: 9780980526981 (pbk.)
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A Hunger : With the Simplified World and the Incoming Tide Petra White , Elwood : John Leonard Press , 2014 7835351 2014 selected work poetry

    'This volume opens with a full-length book of new poems by Petra White, A Hunger. Bound-in with it are her two prior books, The Simplified World and The Incoming Tide. The new poems of A Hunger are as lucid as they are mysterious: crafted for the ear, and for an emotional tone that can slip delicately between the mischievously ironic and a cut-through bleakness or joy. A strong theme at times is depression. As a poet she presses there beyond recording something personal into examining darkness itself, in a fierce art that deliberately gives and asks for no indulgence. The same goes for her love poems, in a sequence that plunges into the wild contradictions and poignancy of new love, with some glances to the Renaissance poets. White's poems inhabit life's essential fragility with a light-footed steadfastness. Her well-known 'Southbank', from her first book, is given a further turn in a new sequence, 'The Sound of Work': Petra White is one of the few contemporary poets to write convincingly about work in an office - indeed work in general. In adding her prior two books to this volume, the Press intends not only to keep them in print, but to lay out for readers the fullness of the growth of an oeuvre. She, the poet, has taken the opportunity to make a handful of excisions and revisions.' (Publication summary)

    Elwood : John Leonard Press , 2014

Works about this Work

Untitled Michael Byrne , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Voice : A Journal of Comment and Review , March no. 41 2012; (p. 20-29)

— Review of The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry ; Late Start, Long Journey Geoff Brougham , 2011 selected work poetry ; Postcard to Sylvia Plath Patricia Jones , 2010 selected work poetry ; High Heels and Tartan Slippers Elaine Barker , 2011 selected work poetry ; The Family Album and Other Poems Gary Langford , 2011 selected work poetry
Poetry Review Sarah Day , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Island , Spring no. 126 2011;

— Review of Possession : Poems about the Voyage of Lt James Cook in The Endeavour 1768-1771 Anna Nicholson , 2010 selected work poetry ; Patience, Mutiny L. K. Holt , 2010 selected work poetry ; The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry ; Swallow Claire Potter , 2010 selected work poetry
The Slim Volume Report Sam Langer , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , August-September no. 113 2011; (p. 50-52)

— Review of Beneath Our Armour Peter Bakowski , 2009 selected work poetry ; In Defence of Hawaiian Shirts B. N. Oakman , 2010 selected work poetry ; The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry
The Latest Word Lindy Warrell , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: Wet Ink , December no. 21 2010; (p. 47-48)

— Review of The Mountain City Murders John Tognolini , 2010 single work novel ; An Absence of Saints Rosanna Licari , 2010 selected work poetry ; The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry
Poignant Observations Geoff Page , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 18 September 2010; (p. 26)

— Review of The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry
Poignant Observations Geoff Page , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 18 September 2010; (p. 26)

— Review of The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry
The Latest Word Lindy Warrell , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: Wet Ink , December no. 21 2010; (p. 47-48)

— Review of The Mountain City Murders John Tognolini , 2010 single work novel ; An Absence of Saints Rosanna Licari , 2010 selected work poetry ; The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry
The Slim Volume Report Sam Langer , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Arena Magazine , August-September no. 113 2011; (p. 50-52)

— Review of Beneath Our Armour Peter Bakowski , 2009 selected work poetry ; In Defence of Hawaiian Shirts B. N. Oakman , 2010 selected work poetry ; The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry
Poetry Review Sarah Day , 2011 single work review
— Appears in: Island , Spring no. 126 2011;

— Review of Possession : Poems about the Voyage of Lt James Cook in The Endeavour 1768-1771 Anna Nicholson , 2010 selected work poetry ; Patience, Mutiny L. K. Holt , 2010 selected work poetry ; The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry ; Swallow Claire Potter , 2010 selected work poetry
Untitled Michael Byrne , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Voice : A Journal of Comment and Review , March no. 41 2012; (p. 20-29)

— Review of The Simplified World Petra White , 2010 selected work poetry ; Late Start, Long Journey Geoff Brougham , 2011 selected work poetry ; Postcard to Sylvia Plath Patricia Jones , 2010 selected work poetry ; High Heels and Tartan Slippers Elaine Barker , 2011 selected work poetry ; The Family Album and Other Poems Gary Langford , 2011 selected work poetry
Last amended 9 May 2017 09:55:14
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