Reviews/Essays

The World Must Weigh the Same by Carol Chan Math Paper Press, 2011 Reviewed by ZHANG RUIHE Since its inception just over a year ago, Math Paper Press’s Babette’s Feast chapbook series has introduced a host of new voices to the literary scene in Singapore. The voice that emerges in Carol Chan’s first collection is […]

Prose poetry is essentially an urban form, although we should do better to refer to it as both essentially and existentially an urban form. A cursory look at the development of the prose poem in mid-nineteenth-century France provides an insight into just why and how this form came to embody the modern metropolis in which […]

Fish-Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis Spinifex Press ISBN 9781876756970 Reviewed by PAUL GIFFARD-FORET   Silencing Voice, Voicing Silence: A Review of Fish-Hair Woman   Silence In her previous novel The Solemn Lantern Maker, Merlinda Bobis had developed what the literary critic Susan Sontag once called as an “aesthetic of silence”. Bobis’ sparse, economical style so […]

New and Selected Poems by Gig Ryan Giramondo Press 2011 ISBN 9781920882662 Reviewed by MARGARET BRADSTOCK   New and Selected texts are increasingly popular with well-established poets and are, in fact, a good way for readers to gain an insight into their manifestos and technical development. This is particularly so in the case of Gig […]

The Sons of Clovis by David Brooks UQP ISBN: 978 0 7022 3884 0 Reviewed by MARTIN EDMOND       Clerks of Metamorphosis A salient quality of the Ern Malley hoax is its incommensurability. There is something about it that, no matter how hard we try, how far we go, where we look, will […]

PREFACE By invitation this paper was presented at The Political Imagination, a Conference on Poetry held by in April 2012 at Monash and Deakin University co-ordinated by Dr Ali Alizadeh, Dr Ann Vickery and Professor Lyn McCredden. I wanted it to be considered for a journal of literary scholarship and so, after some consideration, I submitted it to an […]

 Another Babylon by Vlanes University of Queensland Press ISBN: 978 0 7022 3896 3 Reviewed by NATALIE OWEN-JONES       Another Babylon is the first collection of Vlanes (or Vladislav Nekliaev); it was the recipient of the 2010 Thomas Shapcott Prize and its author has been a Brisbane-based poet since 2001. His Russian heritage […]

and then when the by Dan Disney John Leonard Press ISBN: 9780980852325 Reviewed by Anna KERDIJK NICHOLSON   In the lead-up to the launch of his first full-length book, ‘and then when the’, Dan Disney wrote me a letter in his spidery, spontaneous hand from Korea, where he teaches. He wrote, looping words eating up […]

Dark Night Walking With McCahon by Martin Edmond Auckland University Press Reviewed by MICHELLE DICINOSKI   On April 11, 1984, the major New Zealand artist Colin McCahon disappeared unaccountably in the Sydney Botanic Gardens.  McCahon and his wife Anne were visiting Sydney as guests of the Sydney Biennale when McCahon, then aged 64, disappeared during […]

Coda For Shirley by Geoff Page Interactive Press ISBN 9781921869303   Reviewed by LYN HATHERLY   What a shame that light verse is currently not the most popular genre. For Geoff Page’s new book Coda for Shirley is playful, intriguing and beautifully constructed. This verse novel makes you wish that other poets might ‘Bring Back […]

To Silence by Subhash Jaireth Puncher and Wattmann 2011 ISBN Reviewed by MRIDULA NATH CHAKRABORTY   The titular aptness of Subhash Jaireth’s latest offering cannot be overstated. If silence can indeed be voiced, here it is, speaking volumes. The slimness of the book belies its depth of thought and profundity of expression. In three short […]

The Honey Thief by Najaf Mazari and Robert Hillman WILD DINGO PRESS ISBN: 9780980757040 Reviewed by ABDUL KARIM       In a small village in Afghanistan, a man by the name of Abdul Hussain who stole honey hives was taken as apprentice by the honey hives’ owner because of his extraordinary skills for caring […]

Speak Now Edited by Victor Marsh Clouds of Magellan ISBN 978-0-9807120-9-4 Reviewed by FIONA McKEAN   As Australia is currently poised to answer the question of whether it will say “I do” to same-sex marriage, it’s difficult to imagine a more topical publication than Speak Now, a collection of essays and creative non-fiction pieces on […]

Furious Triangle by Catherine Vidler Puncher and Wattmann ISBN Reviewed by BONNY CASSIDY Readers of a contemporary online poetry journal like Mascara Literary Review are probably among those most comfortable with the idea that a poem can be found or generated in any manner of ways.  We accept that modern poetics has become happily detached […]

The Bearded Chameleon by Chris Mooney-Singh Black Pepper Press ISBN 9781876044718 Reviewed by PHILTON       There are poems for the page and poems for the stage. Chris Mooney-Singh is an established live performer. His second poetry collection, The Bearded Chameleon, transposes his performative skills into poetically good reading. Mooney-Singh is a chameleon because […]

Australians love to venerate and immortalise their outlaws as heroes, seeing rebelliousness and the concept of a ‘fair go’ as part of their cultural identity.  Men such as Ned Kelly, Mad Dog Morgan and Jack Doolan have been celebrated in both film and song for sticking it to the authorities and battling for the ‘little […]

Everyday Static by Toby Fitch Vagabond Press 16 pages Reviewed by ASHLEY CAPES   There is a fascinating tension in Toby Fitch’s Everyday Static, where beauty is wrung from points where the cityscape and the natural world intersect. On one hand the city is a great provider of poetry for Fitch, both through its parade […]

The Monsoon Bride by Michelle Aung Thin TEXT ISBN 9781921758638 Reviewed by Paul Giffard-Foret   Politics of Desire and the Colonial Machine In the much politicised and somewhat romanticised discourse around present Burma (a.k.a. Myanmar) in the Occident, Michelle Aung Thin in her debut novel The Monsoon Bride has chosen to explore the nation’s British […]

Every Man in this Village is a Liar by Megan Stack New York, Doubleday, 2010 This edition: Scribe, 2011 ISBN: 9781921844096 RRP $24.95 Reviewed by TESSA LUNNEY       As it turned out, the first thing I learned about war was also the truest, and maybe it’s as true for nations as for individuals: […]

This Woman by Adrienne Eberhard Black Pepper Press ISBN 9781876044725 Reviewed by MARGARET BRADSTOCK     As the collection’s title suggests, This Woman is a book of poetry situating the poet within her world. It is female poetry, confessional poetry, celebrating motherhood, children, love, nature and its fecundity and, above all, the significance of place, […]