Young Poets: An Australian anthology
John Leonard Press, $27.95 pb, 170 pp
Young Poets: An Australian anthology edited by John Leonard
John Leonard’s anthology of young Australian poets, showcasing the work of an exclusive septet, comes hot on the heels of Felicity Plunkett’s more accommodating Thirty Australian Poets (reviewed by Fiona Wright in the December 2011–January 2012 issue of ABR). Young Poets: An Australian Anthology also adopts an unfortunately polemical relationship to its predecessor. Leonard provides a Preface – originally published in So Long Bulletin, the often-polemical blog of three poets included in his anthology – in which he implies that this new anthology provides something of a corrective gesture. He claims that his anthology puts aside ‘eagerness at some newness’ for ‘more lasting consideration of artistic reach and achievement’.
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