Poetry
Stephen Edgar reviews 'Collected Poems' by Vikram Seth
In one of the poems in Summer Requiem, the most recent of the books in this capacious volume, Seth recalls when he decided to write, 'What even today puzzles me ...
MoreJill Jones is Poet of the Month
Jill Jones is Poet of the Month in the June-July issue of Australian Book Review.
MorePeter Kenneally reviews '101 Poems' by John Foulcher, 'Small Town Soundtrack' by Brendan Ryan, and 'Ahead of Us' by Dennis Haskell
Reading these three books in April, it was impossible not to see in them flashes of what Ross McMullin has described in war artist Will Dyson's drawings from World War I ...
More'Mick and Bianca Jagger, Newlyweds' by David McCooey
We are in the back of the Bentley;
the church and the Riviera crowds
are behind us. The sunroof is open ...
'Woodwind Ode' by Sharon Olds
When the temperature drops, and the wind begins
to moan, through the coils of the air conditioner,
and I wonder how the wind chooses ...
States of Poetry 2016 Podcast | State editor Elizabeth Allen introduces the New South Wales anthology
In this episode of the Australian Book Review's States of Poetry Podcast, state editor Peter Goldsworthy introduces the 2016 New South Wales poets: Aidan Coleman, Jelena Dinic, Ji More
Jordie Albiston is Poet of the Month
WHICH POETS HAVE MOST INFLUENCED YOU?
Emily Dickinson, for her economy; Shakespeare, for his geometric patterning; Elizabeth Bishop, for her precision; Manley Hopkins, for his extravagant tensions; Jorie Graham, for her sustained experimentation with form; Lewis Carroll, for his rhythms; Dr Seuss, for his irrepressible sense of whimsy, and the absurd.
AR ... More
Geoff Page reviews 'Jack & Mollie (& Her)' by Jordie Albiston
Although William Carlos Williams, with some accuracy, claimed that 'every' poem is an 'experiment', the number of successful experiments is relatively rare. Jordie Albiston's new 'long poem' or 'verse novel' (call it what you will) is triumphantly experimental in both technique and content.
In technique, Albiston has done several things which, in other hands ... More
Peter Goldsworthy reviews 'Chorale at the Crossing' by Peter Porter
Peter Porter's posthumous collection of poems, Chorale at the Crossing, is preoccupied, understandably, with death – but death was a central preoccupation of his work from the beginning. How could it not be? He lost his mother at the age of nine.
Porter's two Collected Poems (1983 and 1999) were – are – stupendous, exuberant treasure- ... More
Peter Kenneally reviews 'The Fox Petition' by Jennifer Maiden, 'Breaking the Days' by Jill Jones and 'Exhumed' by Cassandra Atherton
From the cover of Jennifer Maiden's latest book (The Fox Petition, Giramondo, $24 pb, 96 pp, 9781922146946), a wood-cut fox stares the reader down. This foreign, seditious animal is the perfect emblem for Maiden's examination of the xenophobia, conformity, and general moral diminution that she sees around her. Giramondo have given Maiden the liberty of an a ... More
