Puncher & Wattmann Publishing and Flinders Street Gallery invite you to the launch of
The Diwan of Nawid by Mal McKimmie.
To be launched by Judith Beveridge. With readings by Mal.
4pm – 6pm Saturday 4th May 2024
Flinders Street Gallery
61 Flinders Street, Surry Hills, Sydney
Hosted by Flinders Street Gallery on the closing day of an exhibition of artworks by Lisa McKimmie and Fiona Somerville.
The Diwan of Nawid is Mal McKimmie’s fourth collection; Puncher & Wattmann also published At the Foot of the Mountain in 2021. His second book, The Brokenness Sonnets I-III & Other Poems (Five Islands Press, 2011) won the Age Poetry Book of the Year Award in 2012. A selection of poems from his first collection, Poetileptic (FIP, 2005) was broadcast on Poetica on ABC Radio National in 2006. His poems have been published in numerous journals and anthologies and he has read for audiences many times. Mal has acted as an editor, event organiser, a tutor and mentor, and as a lobbyist for poetry and poets. He has also worked in the fields that we call ‘disability’ and ‘mental health’, and at an eco-resort with both people and dolphins, generally preferring the company of the latter.
About the book
‘The Diwan of Nawid is like nothing else in Australian poetry—a spiritual text of sublime beauty in which we follow the struggles, questionings, and exhortations of Nawid, a character you will come to love for the way in which he lays before us his intense search for inviolable truths. Nawid is an ‘everyman’ but with one remarkable difference—he is a first-rate poet whose work contains the devotion and open-minded sagacity of a modern-day Kabir.’
– Judith Beveridge
‘Sometimes a new voice springs from a poet. It’s not quite the poet’s own (although it is), and it’s not quite another’s voice (although it is). The Diwan of Nawid is a memorable collection of poems in such a voice: tender, witty, puzzled, consoling. It is unique in Australian poetry.’
– Kevin Hart
Rochford Street Review 