Books

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Nature is not only celebrated in Castle’s poetry, but suffused with a sense of the sacred. Her use of the title word ‘triptych’ is telling: a triptych (from the Greek triptykhos meaning ‘three-layered’) is an artwork in three parts, usually religious. As a convent-educated daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants to England, she is well versed in church traditions, and her poetry is steeped in a sense of the liminal, of finding herself hovering on the thresholds of worlds—the secular and the spiritual, Ireland and England.

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Domesticity is a key theme and value of Emilie Collyer’s poetry. Likewise, questioning – how do I navigate this body? This world? Gender politics? Public vs private? The cartography of intimate vs domestic, feminist vs patriarchal, blended family vs barren landscape, choice vs coercion.

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Gad has already published two collections of poetry in literal Arabic and one book of songs in the Egyptian dialect. His sensual enjoyment of language permeates Siren of the Heart. In lines that sing with the pleasures and delights of love, the poet considers its amorous joys and sacred gifts.

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Writing and writing in a community has always been central to how Sarah sees her place in the world. I’m more of a lone wolf writer, so I notice it – and am awed by it. The poet’s search for meaning in Sarah’s case is not only for herself but for other people and the world we all have to live in. And she does this magnificently and courageously through both her prose and poetry and her remarkable teachin

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Chalk borders is Sarah’s 2nd book following on from her wonderful debut collection of poems called Open from Rochford Press in 2019. The title comes from her #litchalk activities, where she chalks poems on footpaths during various Canberra arts festivals, an ongoing and brave initiative – a bit like a written version of improv but not quite as fluid as freestyle rap.

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To paraphrase Alan’s own words, you can imagine what the publication of over five decades of work means to the author. For the reader, Near Believing is a timely opportunity to revisit, or to visit for the first time and hopefully be inspired to pursue, the work of one of Australia’s most celebrated poets – I was about to say ‘illustrious’ but could imagine Alan grimacing at that.

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Like all good poetry, Kathryn’s writing has instant delights, but it also offers rewards which do not fade with each revisiting. As well as the pleasures in particular poems, though, this book is remarkable for the scope of its content. There are decades of knowledge and experience behind this poetry, and although Kathryn has a very light touch, her spirit is unfailingly generous as she moves us through a kaleidoscope of topics, all of which have somehow sprung from her own “simply extraordinary business of being” (to quote from her poem ‘On William Robinson’s Later Harvest’).

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Alex has often said that he likes to push language. In this collection, language and poetic form are pushed in particular ways. He has returned to the long poem, a feature of his first collection. The long poem gives the poet room to move. Let’s focus on that idea because travel, journeying—in the world, across time, and in the mind—is a major theme of this collection.

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Walking on a beach on the far south coast I found a metaphor for Anna Couani’s “Local” — a deep ocean shell, cast up from the sea, weathered to reveal its interior spirals. At the apex, a perfect miniature of mature shell- the mollusc’s first home—succeeded by whorls revolving outwards. The creature inside carries its past on its back and all its history is simultaneously present— past and present touch one another.

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