David McCooey
In an age when the news is relentlessly bad, it is tempting to think that we can turn to poetry as either a flight from the pathological politics of our time, or a higher commentary on it. As the poets in this year’s Victorian States of Poetry Anthology show, poetry’s relationship with the news of the day is more complex than that.
David McCooey reviews 'Who Reads Poetry: 50 views from Poetry Magazine' edited by Fred Sasaki and Don Share
So, who reads poetry? American military cadets, that’s who. And medical specialists. Also, songwriters, journalists, and philosophers. And don’t forget (ex-) poets, priests, and politicians (to quote Sting). But let’s get back to those military cadets. What does poetry do for them? Who Reads Poetry gives us a number of ...
... (read more)David McCooey reviews 'Renga: 100 poems' by John Kinsella and Paul Kane
Poets aren’t generally known for being great collaborators. Wordsworth and Coleridge’s 'Lyrical Ballads' (1798) is a rare example of a co-authored canonical work of poetry. 'Renga: 100 poems', by John Kinsella and Paul Kane, has some similarities to 'Lyrical Ballads'. Like those of its ...
... (read more)David McCooey reviews 'David Malouf and the Poetic: His earlier writings' by Yvonne Smith
Plenty of novelists begin life as poets. Few, though, have managed to maintain their status as poet–novelists quite so impressively as David Malouf. But even Malouf, in his ‘middle period’, more or less dropped poetry for his ‘big’ novels ...
... (read more)To celebrate the best books of 2017 Australian Book Review invited nearly forty contributors to nominate their favourite titles. Contributors include Michelle de Kretser, Susan Wyndham, James Ley, Geordie Williamson, Jane Sullivan, Tom Griffiths, Mark Edele, and Brenda Niall.
... (read more)David McCooey reviews 'The Pleasures of Leisure' by Robert Dessaix
The Last Resort (1986), a photobook by Martin Parr, includes a photograph of a woman sunbaking in the English seaside resort of New Brighton. The woman is lying, facedown and topless, on a concrete ramp, directly in front of the caterpillar tracks of a gigantic excavator ...
... (read more)David McCooey reviews 'Graphology Poems 1995–2015, Vols I-III' by John Kinsella
John Kinsella, who lives mostly in Australia, is a transnational literary powerhouse. Poet, fiction writer, playwright, librettist, critic, academic, collaborator, editor, publisher, activist; his activities and accomplishments are manifold. He is best known as a poet, and the publication of Graphology Poems 1995–2015 – a mammoth (and ongoing) discontin ...
Peter Kenneally reviews 'Our Lady of the Fence Post' J.H. Crone, 'Border Security' by Bruce Dawe, 'Melbourne Journal' by Alan Loney, and 'Star Struck' by David McCooey
A book called Our Lady of the Fence Post (UWA Publishing, $22.99 pb, 105 pp, 9781742589121) by a poet called J.H. Crone is an irresistible proposition, simply as a notion ...
... (read more)Poem of the Week - David McCooey reads 'Fleeting: Sylvia Plath at 80'
Thursday, 25 August 2016In this episode of 'Poem of the Week' David McCooey reads 'Fleeting: Sylvia Plath at 80'. ABR Editor, Peter Rose, introduces David who then reads and discusses his poem.
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Do people hate poetry, as the title of Ben Lerner's terrific book-sized essay implies? In Lerner's account, poetry is associated with hatred and contempt, even by ...
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