Issue 41 – 2025:1 has been archived
We have archived Issue 41 of Rochford Street Review. it is now available, along the all other issues stretching back to 2011 under Previous Issues.
Issue 41
‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’ the new collection by Mark Roberts, Sydney launch this Sunday – 25 May
Mark Roberts (co-editor of Rochford Street Review) and 5 Islands Press invite you to the Sydney Launch of ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’ To be launched by Les Wicks with Angela Stretch as your MC
on Sunday 25 May 2025, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm, Benledi House, 186 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia
Hope & Beauty: Bronwyn Rodden previews Yurruun.ga Wetlands – an album
Multi Award winning poet and photographer, John Bennett has teamed up with well-known musician and sound engineer John Laidler to produce a story of hope and beauty, celebrating endangered wetlands reclaimed after years of industrial pollution.
Documenting poetic reactions: D. G. Lloyd launches ‘Filmworks’ by Brian Purcell.
While many of his paintings are impressionistic of nature, his poems – particularly in his latest book Filmworks – are more impressionistic of movies. (It’s almost like a juxtaposition of the still life and the motion picture. The point being, his approach to Impressionism is as far-reaching as possible.) And, like his paintings, Purcell’s poems are more or less characterized by a select number of essential details which convey a sense of urgency in both feelings and sensations.
Mining for the ineffable in the most ordinary of spaces: Lucy Dougan launches ‘G-d, Sleep and Chaos’ by Alan Fyfe
Like all truly satisfying works of art, Al is in possession of an auteur vision. He’s managed to pull all the disparate and quirky aspects of his reading and dreaming life (dreams are very important in this book) – he’s managed to pull all that into a persuasive whole, into poems that are small journeys, atmospheres or theatres through which a reader can roam.
Vale Jan Dean
Rochford Street Review was saddened to learn of the death recently of Jan Dean. With permission we republish the tribute to Jan by Clark Gormley which first appeared in Hunter Living Histories.
Luke Morgan: 5 Poems
Luke Morgan is a poet from Galway, Ireland. His third collection Blood Atlas is new from Arlen House in 2025. He is the recipient of the 29th Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award.
John Jenkins: Windy, Moonlit Night
John Jenkins is a widely travelled writer living on Melbourne’s semi-rural fringe, near the Yarra Valley. His most recent books are Poems Far and Wide, Puncher and Wattmann, 2019; a collection of self-illustrated nonsense poems, Busybird Publishing, 2021; A Double Act, poems co-written with Ken Bolton, Puncher and Wattmann, 2022; The Sky Inside Us, Ginninderra Press, 2022.
A common humanity: Michael Witts reviews ‘Steep Curve’ by Robyn Rowland
This is a collection brimming with life, love and humour. These poems assert their independence while acknowledging their cohesion. They are parts of a greater whole.
Rochford Street Review 