Blast reinvented itself as a poetry-centric magazine in March 2005, and is now something akin to the Chicago-based Poetry – a lot of poetry, followed by critical writing about poetry – though Blast is shorter and Australian. Like Poetry, it is an upper-echelon affair, born from a philosophy of quality. The problem with the new Blast, for better or for worse, is that many of the same names keep coming up. Kevin Brophy, Jan Owen, Michael Sharkey and Leon Trainor have featured in four out of seven editions. Elizabeth Campbell, Bruce Dawe, Mike Ladd, Paul Magee, John Jenkins, Philip Salom, Petra White appear in three out of seven. The problem, you ask? They are all good poets!
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