Reviews
The time of white heat that fueled an era: Suzanne Bellamy remembers Kate Jennings
Since Kate Jennings’s death in May this year, I have had long thoughtful conversations with Barbara Levy, who like me, knew Kate well in that fierce early 1970’s cauldron. Our focus always is that slim period when so much happened at Sydney Women’s Liberation, at 67 Glebe Point Rd and the short period in Glebe until Kate left Australia about 1978 and settled in New York.
Thoughtfully rendered and carefully placed: Angela Costi launches ‘My Mother and The Cat’ by Jeltje Fanoy
This acknowledgment of Traditional Owners of Country has deep significance in the context of launching Jeltje Fanoy’s latest poetry collection, My Mother and The Cat. From the beginning of Jeltje’s long journey as a revered poet, she has demonstrated an unwavering alliance and advocacy for First Nations’ people. Her first collection, Living in Aboriginal Australia, published in 1988, announced a poet who was compelled to dissect their migrant status within the larger lens of colonialism and neoliberalism.
Complex, passionate and inspiring: Robyn Rowland launches ‘I Will Not Bear You Sons’ by Usha Akella.
Thrills & Difficulties: Being a Marxist Poet in 21st Century Ireland by Kevin Higgins
Marxism is something I spent several years actively trying to get away from. But couldn’t. Precisely because the ideas that dominate the mostly middle class poetry world, in which I have been immersed for two decades, are so absurd in comparison. It is precisely because of this lack of intellectual seriousness, which looks increasingly obscene set against events; not to mention its by product: the almost comical chancerism and opportunism which literary liberals call “networking”, that has led me to start acting and thinking in an overtly Marxist way again, since around or about 2014.
Vale Kate Jennings
Rochford Street Review was saddened to hear of the death of Kate Jennings in New York on 1 May this year.
Andrew Lansdown: Four Poems
Andrew Lansdown is a widely published and award-winning Australian writer whose works include 3 novels, 2 short story collections and 15 poetry collections. His most recent books are: Distillations of Different Lands (Sunline Press, Western Australia, 2018); Kyoto Momiji Tanka: Poems and Photographs of Japan in Autumn (Rhiza Press, Queensland, 2019); and Abundance: New and Selected Poems (Wipf & Stock/ Cascade Books, Oregon, USA, 2020).
From the micro to the macroscopic: Indrani Perera launches ‘Wearing My Father’s Hat’ by David Munro
Wearing My Father’s Hat by David Munro Melbourne Poets Union Inc, 2020, was virtually launched by Indrani Perera on 4 November 2020.
Karen May: Four Poems
Karen May’s poetry has been published by Bluepepper, Cicerone Journal and Poetry d’Amour 2020 Anthology, WA Poets Inc. She is a climate and ecological activist, animal helper and artist, and lives in Ngunnawal/Ngambri Country.
