A Journal of Australian & International Cultural Reviews, News and Criticism.
When you read these books you’ll see that the work is supported by a network of women sharing their work – the Saturday Writing Sisters – and also women critiquing and editing each other’s work.
The Art world and the literary scene don’t interact in any culturally productive way, yet any writer would admit to feeding off visual art and any visual artist would say the same of literature. Since Tipping is both writer and visual artist, he must be very well-nourished.
Phyllis Perlstone’s most recent poetry collection, But Now, celebrates the trajectory of a life. The preface alerts us to the scenario we are about to enter, from the time of the second world war, through the Great Depression, to a life-style in modern-day Barangaroo.
As a political refugee, Garrido-Salgado is essentially a travelling poet, and his suitcase of words creates and reimagines home through the act of writing a poem. The dilemma of writing a poem is considered from many angles, including the key concern that the dual tools of his trade, Spanish and English, are the language of the coloniser.
Gillett’s land and seascapes convey levels of meaning and receptivity far beyond the literal, and deepen our understanding of the forces that move us.
Spirit Level: the balance between two worlds, two lives, between memory and the lived past. In this, her third collection of poetry, Marcelle Freiman continues to explore, in greater depth, themes arising from her earlier books, White Lines (Vertical) and Monkey’s Wedding.
This is penetrating yet humble poetry. Poems that fall off the tongue as gratifying as water. Some written in ways that remind me of curved, cascading terraced hillsides. Taking me to places of serenity by honouring our daily encounters found within ceilings and walls, fences and yards, streets and parks, skin and bone.
No poet appears out of context, in fact, most poets write in response to or against the many poets who have come before them, as well as the poets that they may share a connection with in contemporary. Johnson’s poetry is no different, in the sense that her eco-poetics and position as a writer keenly aware of the power and fragility of the natural world is borne out of her close reading of other poets and writers.
With poetry of cinematic quality, the poet tells the story of Rebecca Lieberman who was only fourteen with not much life experience or schooling, but she had strength of character and a skill, she knew how to read the fortune in tea leaves. A skill that helped her to survive.
Rochford Street Review 