A Journal of Australian & International Cultural Reviews, News and Criticism.
In reading Lisa Collyer’s poetry collection, Gold Digger, I was struck by how she writes poems that are battle-line hardy, staunchly feminist, with a working-class sensibility and a gendered understanding of both out-of-home work and the domestic sphere
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.
There were three things that took my attention before I had even cracked this book, as I held it in my hand and turned it this way and that. Firstly, there was no author name or title on the frontispiece. Unusual. Even rare.
Gazebo Books 2023.
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon writes poetry from and about the female body.
Her opening collection, First Blood was a gritty exploration of girlhood that challenged cultural expectations of ideal femininity. Her second collection If There is a Butterfly continues to centre female bodily experience, taking pregnancy, birth, and motherhood into her orbit.