Worm Food and Bone Sand
Reviewed onA gothic and unflinching debut collection, Ellis’s poems are haunted by the ghosts of adolescent past and the melancholic self. Some snatch the reader in, while others soothingly lure. But …
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Speakeasy
Reviewed onSpeakeasy is an eloquent collection of poetry is presented in two parts: “Conceal” and “Reveal”. “Conceal” basks in nostalgia, longing and regret while “Reveal” delights in love, desire and life. …
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Second Fleet Baby
Reviewed onTenderness, grief, fear, shame and delight are situated in the world of reproduction, and also in this splendid, intelligent poetry collection – the second by historian, academic and poet Nadia …
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Clean
Reviewed onScott-Patrick Mitchell’s first full-length collection connects the reader to the addict as human, to place as suburban, and to society as complicit. Clean disrupts the sole burden of guilt on …
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Blue Wren
Reviewed onBlue Wren is the third collection by Bron Bateman: poet, academic and mother of nine. It’s a strong work, structured around a suite of Frida Kahlo paintings, then leading into …
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Acanthus
Reviewed onAcanthus is the third collection of poetry by lauded Perth-born poet Claire Potter. Collapsing formal categories such as human/animal, ancient/modern and urban/natural, these poems open up worlds of strange and wonderful …
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Blue Moon Over Moorea
Reviewed onSally Gaunt’s second collection of poetry begins with a delicate exploration of masculinity through the symbolism of feathers. These hued feather poems paint valour and eroticism but hint at male …
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Paradise (Point of Transmission)
Reviewed onRefreshingly, Andrew Sutherland’s debut poetry collection does not sanitise queer experience. The poems were written between 2017 and 2021, during which time Sutherland was diagnosed HIV-positive and moved from Singapore …
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Cartwarra or What?
Reviewed onAlf Taylor’s poetry and fiction voiced in Nyoongar English are a collection of his best. Nyoongar histories pay necessary attention to a way of life forced by colonisation. Taylor has …
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Rose Interior
Reviewed onTracy Ryan is an award-winning poet and Rose Interior, her tenth collection, is a wide ranging, intelligent and deeply thoughtful book. Themes range from the interior to the exterior, the …
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