Archives
Ben Hession
November 12, 2025
Ben Hession is a disabled writer, living on Dharawal country (Wollongong), south of Sydney, Australia. His poetry has been published in Eureka Street, the International Chinese Language Forum, Cordite Poetry Review, Mascara Literary Review, Bluepepper, Marrickville Pause, The Blue Nib, Live Encounters: Poetry and Writing, Antipodes and Don Bank Live Poets anthology Can I Tell You A Secret? […]
Ben Hession reviews Inland Sea by Brenda Saunders
November 20, 2023
Inland Sea by Brenda Saunders Gininderra Press ISBN 9781761091445 Reviewed by BEN HESSION Inland Sea is the third full collection by Brenda Saunders, a Wiradjuri writer, following a somewhat lengthy hiatus. Saunders’ last collection, The Sound of Red, was published back in 2014. Her debut volume, Looking for Bullin Bullin, had won the […]
Ben Hession reviews Whisper Songs by Tony Birch
October 16, 2021
Whisper Songs by Tony Birch UQP ISBN 9780702263279 Reviewed by BEN HESSION Tony Birch is a Naarm (Melbourne) based writer, who is probably better known for his prose, including his short story collections and novels, of which, The White Girl, won the Indigenous Writers’ Prize of the 2020 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards. He […]
Gemma Parker
July 2, 2021
Gemma Parker is a poet and a teacher at the University of Adelaide. Her poems and essays have been published in Transnational Literature, Award Winning Australian Writing, Writ Poetry Review and the Tokyo Poetry Journal. She was the 2016 winner of the Shoalhaven Literary Award for Poetry. She holds a PhD from the University of […]
Ben Hession reviews These Wild Houses by Omar Sakr
March 1, 2018
These Wild Houses by Omar Sakr Cordite Press ISBN: 9780975249277 Reviewed by BEN HESSION In a departure from most poetry books, the series issued by Cordite Publishing features a preface by the poet, as well as an introduction by an established writer, who in Omar Sakr’s case is his mentor and tutor, Judith Beveridge. Unlike […]
The Burial by Bijan Najdi translated by Laetitia Nanquette & Ali Alizadeh
October 11, 2014
Bijan Najdi (1941-1997) was an Iranian poet and short-story writer, famous for his collection The Leopards Who Have Run With Me (1994), from which the selected short-story “The Burial” comes from. His style is characterized by the use of unfamiliar and poetical images offering a fresh perspective on the everyday world. The Burial […]
Lionel Fogarty
December 1, 2013
Born on Wakka Wakka land at Barambah, which is now known as Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve, Lionel Fogarty has travelled nationally and internationally presenting and performing his work. Since the seventies Lionel has been a prominent activist, poet writer and artist; a Murri spokesperson for Indigenous Rights in Australia and overseas. His poetry art work and oral […]
Tim Wright reviews Mogwie-Idan Stories of the Land by Lionel Fogarty
November 21, 2013
Mogwie-Idan Stories of the Land by Lionel Fogarty Vagabond Press ISBN 978-1-922181-02-2 Reviewed by TIM WRIGHT Arguments for the importance and power of Fogarty’s poetry have been made by a number of writers since the 1980s. Some prominent examples are: the forewords to Fogarty’s first two collections, written by Cheryl Buchanan and Gary […]
Lionel Fogarty
June 13, 2013
Born on Wakka Wakka land at Barambah, which is now known as Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve, Lionel Fogarty has travelled nationally and internationally presenting and performing his work. Since the seventies Lionel has been a prominent activist, poet writer and artist; a Murri spokesperson for Indigenous Rights in Australia and overseas. His poetry art work and […]