Reviews/Essays

by Associate Professor Paul Sharrad University Of Wollongong Paul Sharrad is Associate Professor in English Literatures at the University of Wollongong where he teaches postcolonial writing and theory. He has published on people such as Salman Rushdie, Peter Carey, Christopher Koch, Anita Desai, Wilson Harris,Raja Rao and Albert Wendt. His book on Indian fiction in […]

  On The Apocrypha Of William O’Shaunessy MICHELLE CAHILL in conversation with PETER BOYLE   MC: What were the inspirations for your work The Apocrypha Of William O’Shaunessy ? PB: Many and varied. It is a long work – about 400 pages with a wide variety of material. I began it in 2004. Museum of Space […]

  Eucalypt: A Tanka journal, Issue 3, 2007 Beverley George (Ed.) PO Box 37 Pearl Beach 2256 ISSN 1833-8186 RRP: $30 for two issues p.a Reviewed by MARGARET BRADSTOCK          I was impressed by the inaugural issue of Eucalypt, appearing in 2006 and positively reviewed by Jan Dean in Five Bells (vol.14, no.2, […]

Writing The Pacific Jen Webb and Kavita Nandan (eds)   IPS, 2007 ISBN 9789823660165  Reviewed by MARTIN EDMOND       The title of this anthology, Writing the Pacific, immediately called to mind an extraordinary story James Hamilton-Paterson tells in his long essay Sea Burial. It is about the mid 19th century shipwreck of Italian writer/philosopher […]

On John Mateer’s Southern Barbarians (Zero Press, Johannesburg, 2007)  (Originally published in Kris Hemensley’s blog, available at http://collectedworks-poetryideas.blogspot.com  November 2008)   Reviewed by KRIS HEMENSLEY Such presence exists in John Mateer’s Southern Barbarians (Zero Press, Johannesburg, 2007), bolstered by plenty of first person, and maybe that’s the reason it’s so pleasurable to read – first […]

Once Poemas, Septiembre 1973 By Juan Garrido Salgado Translated by Stuart Cooke Picaro Press ISBN 978-1-920957-39-1 Warners Bay, 2007 Order Copies from www.picaropress.com Reviewed by HEATHER TAYLOR JOHNSON       Once Poemas, Septiembre 1973 (Eleven Poems, September 1973) reads like a narrative of collected single poems. Though not a verse novel, it tells the […]

Ana Blandiana was born Otilia-Valeria Coman on 25th March 1942 in Timiºoara, Romania and adopted her pen name at seventeen with the publication of her first poem. After marrying editor Romulus Rusan in 1960 she attended the faculty of philology in Cluj-Napoca.                                                                                                       Ana Blandiana I first heard of the poet Ana Blandiana as a […]

Over There: Poems from Singapore and Australia Edited by John Kinsella and Alvin Pang, Ethos Books (2008) / 324 pages / SGD 35.00     Readers looking for cross-literary collaboration between Singapore and Australia will find Over There: Poems from Singapore and Australia, a valuable addition to their poetry library. How do we name and […]

Look Who’s Morphing by Tom Cho Giramondo ISBN 978 192088 2549 www.giramondopublishing.com 181 pages   reviewed by CYRIL WONG Reading all of Tom Cho’s stories in a single sitting proved to be an exhilarating experience that left me reconsidering past and broken familial relationships, the politics of identity-formations, as well as the insecurities and uncontrollable desires that […]

The Kingsbury Tales By Ouyang Yu Brandl and Schlesinger ISBN 978-1-876040-82-6 books@brandl.com.au Reviewed by CYRIL WONG   In The Kingsbury Tales, Ouyang Yu has decided that he has written a novel, instead of just a collection of poems. Although there is no overarching, dramatic narrative beyond the physical and emotional transitions the poet makes between Australia, […]

A Shrine to Lata Mangeshkar By Kerry Leves Puncher & Wattmann ISBN 0-9752405-4-4 Glebe, 2008 Order Copies from http://www.puncherandwattmann.com Reviewed by KRISTIN HANNAFORD   Sometimes you have a book that travels with you.  A collection of poems which has secreted itself into a handbag or suitcase, a book you grab and keep chancing upon like […]

Touch By Meena Kandasamy Peacock Books Mumbai ISBN: 81-88811-87-4 Reviewed by JAYDEEP SARANGI   Dalit literatures in India are subversive, or structurally alternative to the models prescribed by traditional Hindu aesthetics precisely because they are literatures of sociological oppression and economical exploitation. Dalit literatures are essentially a shock to tradition and sense. They are an assault to the anthropomorphic […]

Language For A New Century   Edited by Tina Chang, Nathalie Handal, Ravi Shankar   ISBN 978-0-393-33238-4 2008 WW Norton   reviewed by MICHELLE CAHILL     Language For a New Century, published last year by Norton, is a collection of poetry from Asia, and the Middle East. The book is a poetic odyssey, an […]

A Cool and Shaded Heart Noel Rowe (Vagabond Press, ISBN 97805511307, $25)                                  Reviewed by MARGARET BRADSTOCK   Just under a year since Noel Rowe’s untimely death, Vagabond Press have graced us with a volume of his collected poems, selected by editor Michael Brennan. The collection does not include Rowe’s first book, Wings and Fire, […]

Fragile Context By Kristin Hannaford Post Pressed ISBN 9781921214189. 324/50 Macquarie St, Teneriffe, Qld, 4005 order from postpressed@gmail.com

Dilip Chitre is and Indian poet, artist and filmaker. He has published thirty books, five of which have been translated into German. He has won several prizes and awards.                      I have been drawing, sketching, and painting since my early childhood when I also started playing with words. My father collected books […]

Man Wolf Man by L. K. Holt  John Leonard Press, Elwood, 2007 ISBN: 9780977578771 78 pp. pb. AUD23.95   Reviewed by KIM CHENG BOEY                  Lyric poetry has the power to slow time down to intense, expanded moments of seeing and feeling. Its measured breaths connect language and silence, music and poetry, the visible […]

Young Rain                                                           New Poems by Kevin Hart Giramondo, 2008 (85 pages) ISBN: 9781920882457     Reviewed by CYRIL WONG               Kevin Hart’s poems are full of darkness and light, oscillating gracefully between meditations on death, the limits of selfhood, sex and the erotics of longing and memory. And although they are composed in a style […]

The Circus by Ken Bolton Wakefield Press 2010 ISBN: 9781862546899 REVIEWED BY RAE DEE JONES   For thirty years Ken Bolton has shown tenacious dedication to his chosen art. Apart from producing a series of volumes of poetry of unusual consistency, he also edited the magazine Magic Sam. When I read this recent volume after browsing through some of […]