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Three poets as “The Watcher”

by
June 1985, no. 71

Selected Poems 1971-1982 by Pamela Brown

Redress Press, 147pp., $9.95pb

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

Manners of an Astronaut by Gig Ryan

Hale & Iremonger, 80pp., $7.95pb

She Moves Mountains by Colleen Burke

Redress Press, 96pp., $5.95pb

Three poets as “The Watcher”

by
June 1985, no. 71

All three poets use a personal voice to summon forth their immediate universe. Ryan and Brown are very much entrenched in their respective sub-cultures whilst Burke is essentially the polemicist, the observer of life in her native Newtown.

Ryan’s collection is permeated with the language of a very bold imagination: “As a brain leaks out from its tiny emotional field”; “Smile like a white ladder. That’s their famous trick”; “His straight and yellow skin steers his parents’ car”.

Manners of an Astronaut is essentially a world of emotional hallucination. As typified by the poems ‘In Blue Craft and Two Minds’ and ‘When You Feel’, Gig Ryan’s collection is to one degree or another a constant repetition of the author’s delirium. In fact this ceaseless outpouring of angst becomes a major weakness as the reader will inevitably tire of wading through knee-deep neuroses.

Selected Poems 1971-1982

Selected Poems 1971-1982

by Pamela Brown

Redress Press, 147pp., $9.95pb

Manners of an Astronaut

Manners of an Astronaut

by Gig Ryan

Hale & Iremonger, 80pp., $7.95pb

She Moves Mountains

She Moves Mountains

Colleen Burke

Redress Press, 96pp., $5.95pb

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