Oystercatcher One, Edited by Steven Meyrick, 5 Islands Press 2024

Since its founding in 1986 by Ron Pretty, Five Islands Press has been a lighthouse for poets and readers sailing in the variable waters of Australian poetry. After his death, a small group of people worked hard to both preserve Pretty’s substantial legacy, as well as release a small supply of new titles. In October 2023, Mark Tredinnick, who has already been awarded an OAM for his services to Australian literature, became director, working together with fellow poet, Steve Meyrick, to reinvigorate the Press. Five Islands has already produced seven new titles, including a craft book (forthcoming), a book honouring the work of the legendary Robert Gray, as well as several individual collections.

The range demonstrates the pair’s commitment and hard work, as well as their underlying philosophy that poetry can navigate the narrow and perilous channel between specialised academic enclaves and the free-for-all of the Instagram scene. In other words, poetry that is sinewy, substantial, well-crafted and readable can once again be made widely available to a general reader, as it has been in generations past.

My focus here is the recently released anthology, Oystercatcher One, an unexpected outcome of Five Islands’ call for MS submissions made early in 2024. Eight selected titles from the submissions will be released sequentially throughout 2025. Full disclosure, my MS was one of 20 shortlisted for their 2025 list, and I have poems in the anthology. My perspective will naturally be inflected through my own subjectivity. Given that, it also affords me insights that would not be visible otherwise.

I do not know whether the concept of an anthology of poems culled from the submissions arose prior to the call out, or in response to the general quality of the manuscripts received. Either way, it was an inspired choice, which demonstrates the editors’ stated commitment to supporting the poetic community.

Most poets well understand that rejection is an unavoidable aspect of the writing life, and that poetry presses are frequently kept afloat by the labour of a small handful of (often volunteering) people. Still, it’s disheartening how frequently submissions are simply ghosted, particularly on platforms like Submittable. Without even the courtesy of a standard-issue rejection email, poets’ work float in limbo, unacknowledged even by a respectful ‘no thanks’. The genuine thoughtfulness of the editorial approach at Five Islands Press is refreshingly different.

For the above reasons, I am naturally inclined to be favourably disposed to an anthology of which I am part. It did not disappoint my expectations. The 101 poems included are varied in form and tone, covering timeless themes as well as unexpected perspectives. The poetic voices ranged from urban and gritty through to lyrical and pastoral. The two opening poems, Jenny Pollak’s ‘11ish with big wind’ and Clair Gaskin’s ‘after I die’ are outstanding, and well deserve their placement at the opening of the anthology. I had to sit for a while with the elegiac planetary and personal melancholy they conjured before I could venture to read further.

Although not all the poems that followed struck such a profound chord, many were excellent and exploring the whole anthology provided multiple rewards. In a collection of 101 poems, it’s impossible to single out more than a handful to cite, even though there were far more that greatly appealed to me. I’ll offer just a taster of the possibilities, enough I hope to whet a reader’s appetite. James Walton’s ‘How to Bake Breakfast Scones, in Easy Steps’ made me laugh out loud, a rare response to reading a poem! I was fascinated by Rozanna Lilley’s ‘Kissclasp’ and its unique cocktail of colonial tropes, told aslant. The sensuous yet unsentimental images in Elizabeth Lewis ‘Home’ are a beautiful meditation on ageing and family love. These are familiar themes, but the poem’s specificity is original and fresh.

It is part of Five Islands’ philosophy to provide a diverse suite of work that might appeal to a variety of poetic palates, rather than being too closely aligned with any school or fashion. t was not to be expected that I would find all the poems equally suited to my taste, and therein lies the strength of the anthology. Work that didn’t particularly resonate with me on first reading might well be exactly what makes another reader sit up and take notice. I certainly found ample to satisfy my reading pleasure, and many that I will return to again and again, and the diversity means that that will be the case for a larger pool of readers.The stated ambitions and hopes of the Five Islands editors to provide work that will increase the numbers of people who will read and engage with poetry is, I believe, well founded.

 – Liana Joy Christensen

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Liana Joy Christensen is the author of Deadly Beautiful — Vanishing Killers of the Animal Kingdom and two poetry collections. Wild Familiars and Unnatural History. Much of her work is focused on her passion for the natural world. Her poems have appeared in various literary publications internationally, nationally, and very locally – two are inscribed on the Busselton Jetty! Some are performance pieces which have showcased in Amsterdam, the Fremantle Festival, and the Perth Poetry Festival. She was the Biodiversity Poet in Residence for the Flourish Festival and spent seven years as the M.C. for Voicebox. Her essays and poetry have won many awards, and been shortlisted for major prizes, including the Newcastle Poetry Prize. She has a poem in the February 2025 edition of New Scientist.

You can buy Oystercatcher One, Edited by Steven Meyrick from https://www. 5islandspress.com/ product-page /oystercatcher-one

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