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More than holding on

New poetry by Jelena Dinić and Jane Gibian
by
April 2022, no. 441

In the Room with the She Wolf by Jelena Dinić

Wakefield Press, $19.95 pb, 83 pp

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

Beneath the Tree Line by Jane Gibian

Giramondo, $24 pb, 87 pp

More than holding on

New poetry by Jelena Dinić and Jane Gibian
by
April 2022, no. 441

In an impressive first collection, the South Australian poet Jelena Dinić incorporates her Serbian heritage and memories of war-affected Yugoslavia into an Australian migration narrative of clear-sighted beauty. William Carlos Williams wrote in the introduction to Kora In Hell: Improvisations (1920): ‘Thus a poem is tough … solely from that attenuated power which draws perhaps many broken things into a dance giving them thus a full being.’ Although far from improvisational, Dinić’s poetry compositionally integrates both fragility and strength as it draws together diverse experiences of war trauma, cultural displacement, the petty administrative routines of immigration departments, a Malaysian writing fellowship, Australian icons (such as the rainwater tank), folklore, and bathing in the Adriatic Sea.

Jennifer Harrison reviews 'In the Room with the She Wolf' by Jelena Dinić and 'Beneath the Tree Line' by Jane Gibian

In the Room with the She Wolf

by Jelena Dinić

Wakefield Press, $19.95 pb, 83 pp

Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600)

Beneath the Tree Line

by Jane Gibian

Giramondo, $24 pb, 87 pp

From the New Issue

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